v. (past)
Gaw fnasted
‘snorted, panted’
(Modern English fnast)Probably from OE fnǣstian ‘to breathe hard, pant, gasp’, formed on the n. fnǣst ‘breath, breathing; blast (of frost or fire)' (thus OED, MED, TGD, GDS). This supposes a PGmc *fnēst-, which is related to a number of similar stems with comparable senses, including: OIcel fnasa, fnása ‘to sneeze, snort, snort in rage’ (cp. MHG phnāsen, OHG fnāstōn ‘to cough, snort, sigh’ etc.); OE fnesan ‘to breathe hard, pant, gasp’; OIcel fnœsa ‘to sneeze’; OIcel fnýsa ‘to sneeze’, OE fnēosan, MDu fniesen, MHG pfnūsen. Savage (1930) is alone in arguing that the sense at Gaw 1702 is ‘blowing breath hard through the nostrils’ rather than through the mouth, and that this is distinctive enough to require ON input.
PGmc Ancestor
*fnēst-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
fnasa 'to sneeze, snort, snort in rage'
(ONP )
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Icel fnasa, fnása, Dan fnase
OE Cognate
fnǣstian ‘to breathe hard, pant, gasp’
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
CCC3c
A rare form, only otherwise recorded in MED from (c1300) Havelok (LdMisc 108) and as a variant in c1440 Chaucer CT.Mcp.(LdMisc 600).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 1587, 1702