Etymology

Two distinct Old English words have evidently fallen together in the Gaw scribal dialect (also Erk, see Peterson 95n): (1) OE hlēor ‘cheek; face, countenance’, cp. OS hleor, OIcel hlýr (pl.) ‘cheek’, < PGmc *xleuz-;  and (2) OE līra ‘any fleshy part of the body, muscle, calf of the leg’, which is taken by Lidén (1906: 365–7, and followed by Pokorny 673 and AEW) to represent a PGmc *ligiz- and thus to be connected to a number of forms including OIcel lær ‘thigh, leg above the knee; ham’ (see leggez). When ME lere (spelt with <e>) can be taken to refer specifically to the face, and lyre (spelt with <i, y>) to the flesh, skin, body (etc.), they can be accounted for by derivation straightforwardly from OE. However when spellings in <i, y> seem to be used of the face, then it is possible to explain this by appealing to input from ON hlýr (so TGD, GDS, McGee 340, MED, Bj.). Bj cites ON /y:/ here as a phonetic test of loan, but this is problematic as there are other ways to explain ME /i:/. Conversely, it is possible to see influence from ON lær as contributing to forms in <e> referring to the flesh (though this is suggested only by MED). In practice it is extremely difficult to separate the instances of lyre/lere in the Gaw MS into two distinct lexemes, by form or by sense and spellings in <e> and <y> seem to be employed as variants of a single lexical item with a core meaning ‘fleshy part of the body’. The loan of one or more of ON hlýr and lær might have contributed to this confusion, but is not necessary to explain it (thus OED, Kullnick 8, Emerson 1922: 377, and see further Dance 2003: 404).

PGmc Ancestor

*xleuz-; *ligiz-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

hlýr (pl.) ‘cheek’; lær ‘thigh, leg above the knee; ham’
(ONP hlýr (1) (sb.); lær (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Icel hlýr, Norw lyre, Norw dial lyra; Far, lær Icel lær, læri, Norw lær, lår, Dan, Sw lår

OE Cognate

hlēor ‘cheek; face, countenance’; līra ‘any fleshy part of the body, muscle, calf of the leg’

Phonological and morphological markers

[ON /y/ < */iu/ by front mutation] (possibly diagnostic) (may not be applicable)

Summary category

CC2c

Attestation

As MED divides its two lexemes (see etymological discussion), līre (n.2) occurs in early SWM texts, and is then mainly N and E and alliterative, though it is also recorded from Chaucer ((c1390) Chaucer CT.Th.(Manly-Rickert) B2047, which has both <e>and <i> variants.  Lēr (n.) is more frequently attested, but by the later 14c. it is more common in N and E and alliterative texts (esp. in sense (2) ‘face, countenance; complexion’). Lire is attested with reference to the fleshy part on an animal in Sc. and N MnE dial. (see EDD and OED).

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 318, 418, 943, etc.; Pe 398; Cl 1542, 1687; Erk 95, 149; WA 3942

Usually divided into two lexemes by the glossaries of Gaw (on grounds of sense rather than form): thus TGD has 318, 943, 2228 s.v. lyre n.1 ‘cheek, face’ and 418, 2050 s.v. lyre n.2 ‘flesh’ (2050 glossed further as ‘coat’).  But there is considerable disagreement as to sense-division and assignment to head-words (see further etymological discussion), and all five instances must be discussed as a group.

Bibliography

MED lēr (n.) ; līre (n.2) , OED leer (n.1) , HTOED ; lire (n.1) , HTOED , EDD lire sb.1, Dance lyre, Bj. 115, 282, de Vries hlýr (1); lær, Mag. hlýr (1); lær (1), Bj-L. lår, Orel *xleuzan; *laʒwaz ~ *laxwaz, Kroonen *hleuza-; *lehizan-, AEW hlēor; līra