Etymology

Always derived from ON, cp. OIcel félagi ‘partner, shareholder, fellow, comrade; partner, consort’, a characteristically ON compound of PGmc *fexu ‘cattle, moveable goods, money’ (Go faíhu, OIcel fé, OE feoh, OFris fiā, OS fehu, OHG fihu) and an agent n. formed on the root of the wk. 1 v. *lagjan- ‘to lay’ (< the pret. sg. stem of *legan- ‘to lie’) (cp. also OIcel félag ‘fellowship, partnership’ and a number of derivatives.). OE fēolag- is almost certainly a loan-blend based on an ON model, as it is first attested in the 11c. and no compound of these elements occurs elsewhere in Gmc; the use of *lagjan- and its derivatives in the sense ‘to fix/agree (a price)’ is moreover typical of ON as opposed to WGmc. The first element in OE fēolaga (as in ME spellings in <feo>) evidently shows substitution of the native cognate of ON fé, while the cognate OE morpheme -laga in the second element occurs in a hitherto unattested sense of placing or fixing (see further SPS 95).

PGmc Ancestor

*fexu + *leg-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

félagi ‘partner, shareholder, fellow, comrade; partner, consort’
(ONP fé-lagi (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far felag, felagi, Icel félag, Norw felag, ODan felge, Dan fællig, fælle, OSw fælagh

OE Cognate

cp. feoh ‘cattle, moveable goods, money’, lecgan 'to lay, put, place, deposit, set' 

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

C4

(C3)

Attestation

After four occurrences in late OE of feolaga (earliest in ChronD s.a. 1016), very frequent and widespread in ME.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 1702, WA 819*, 864, 3282

TPD (see their 820n) read an instance at WA 819* for what Skeat understands as <felons>.

Bibliography

MED fēlau(e (n.) , OED fellow (n.) , HTOED , Dance felaʒes, Bj. 209, SPS 95, 297–8, de Vries félagi, Mag. félag, Seebold leg-ja-, Bammesberger 152, 156, Orel *fexu; *laʒjanan, Kroonen *fehu-; *lagjan-, AEW fēo-laga, DOE fēo-laga