Etymology

In form ME at continues OE æt, with which cp. OIcel at (and Go at, OFris et, OS at, OHG az).  When it is used to introduce infinitives in place of OE tō, ME at very probably derives from ON usage (see at (adv.)), but in other uses (as in Gaw) ON input is not usually adduced. The exception is Price (1947: 11-33) whose maximalist approach to measuring semantic influence leads him to cite a wide range of senses of at in as potentially owing something to analogous uses of ON at, but he has no followers.

PGmc Ancestor

*at

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

at 'against, towards, at, to'
(ONP at (3) (prep.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far at, Icel að, Norw ad, åt, Dan ad, Sw åt

OE Cognate

æt 'at, near, by, in (etc.)'

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CCC3

Attestation

Very widely used across ME, in a great variety of related senses.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 464, 1006, 1474

More examples could have been cited in the Gaw manuscript (and from Erk and WA) if including Price's other senses (1947: 11-33) and searching for them across the corpus; but we have not attempted to do so here, and have restricted ourselves to Price's instances from Gaw (alone).

Bibliography

MED at (prep.) , OED at (prep.) , HTOED , Dance at, de Vries at (2), Mag. að (1), Orel *at, Kroonen *at, AEW æt (1), DOE æt (prep. and adv.), VEPN æt