Etymology

ME rasse appears only in the Gaw-manuscript, once at Gaw 1570 (denoting somewhere the wild boar attempts to hide: ‘he to a hole wynnez / of a rasse bi a rokk þer rennez þe boerne’) and once at Cl 446 (describing where Noah’s ark comes to rest). Most commentators have assumed that we have the same word in both cases, denoting roughly the same landscape feature; but the range of possible referents in the two contexts is wide (theories (1) to (3) interpret rasse as a mass in the landscape and theory (4) reads the Gaw word at least as a watercourse), and a number of quite different etymological explanations has been attempted: (1)(a) Recent consensus (TG, TGD, followed by MED and PS) derives rasse from early Fr ras ‘level’ (i.e. modern Fr ras ‘close-cropped, short-napped, bare, smooth, flat; level’), < Lat rāsus (pp. of rādō ‘to scrape, scratch, shave, rub, smooth’). This provides a good fit for the form and can make sense of both contexts, if a basic meaning of 'level ground' is assumed. There are nonetheless no other known instances of a loan of this Fr word in English before the 1670s (when OED has two isolated citations of a n. rase meaning ‘a levelled (as opposed to a heaped) measure’), and the noun is attested in AN only in the sense ‘a measure of herrings’ (AND). (b) OED3 glosses rasse ‘a peak, a summit; a projection or ledge of rock’ and compares instead AN ras probably meaning ‘head’, but a word with this sense is attested only once in medieval Fr (translating Genesis 3.15 caput), and its etymology is entirely obscure (though it is conceivably identical with early Fr ras 'level' (etc.) as at (a)). (2) Sundén (1930, and cited by McGee) glosses rasse ‘rounded hill’ or ‘rounded projection of a rock or mountain’, deriving it < the ON word represented by OIcel rasse (raz) ‘arse’, i.e. a metathesized variant of ON ars; cp. the similar doublets in MnIcel (ars, rass), Far (arsur, rassur) and Norw (ars, rass) next to Dan, Sw ars, cognate with OE ears, OFris ers, OS ars, OHG ars < PGmc *arsaz. There are no evident occurrences of a rass in the English place-name record, but there are precisely analogous uses of ears to refer to topographical features (see EPNE): DOE finds it ‘used in place-names to refer to a rounded hill' and Sundén reports that rass is used in the northern part of Bohuslän (Sweden, formerly Norway) to describe parts of mountains. This is a good match for the form and sense of both contexts. (3) Far less plausibly, Emerson suggests derivation from an unattested OE *rās ‘rising’, giving an early ME rase ‘and by shortening rasse’ with the sense ‘rising or perpendicular slope’ of a cliff. But the ad hoc shortening is unexplained, and there is no precedent for derivations on the a-grade of the PGmc str. I vb. *rīsan- (as in OE rīsan ‘to rise’ (etc.)) with quite this meaning. (4) Taking a different tack, a final set of theories effectively identify rasse as a variant (with short /a/ rather than long /a:/) of ME rāse, PDE race, which is usually now accounted for primarily as a loan from ON rás or ras but with likely input from Fr, esp. when it refers to the ‘channel or bed of a stream’ (a meaning otherwise first attested in English from 1570) (see esp. OED's sense 5b and the discussion of race): (a) Anderson derives it directly from the MFr ras(s)e 'irrigation channel' (< Lat rāsus, and thus ult. etymologically identical with the Fr word discussed at (1)), while Elliott (1984: 78–9, 140, followed by AW) took Cl rasse as a different word (< OFr ras (again < Lat rāsus)) and derived Gaw rasse < ON rás with the meaning ‘(water)course, channel’ (< PGmc *rēs-, cp. OE rǣs ‘rush, leap, running; onrush, storm, attack’, MLG rās ‘strong current’). The vocalism of this ON word is not a good match for that of rasse, but as a source of ME /a/ one could appeal instead to ON ras- (as in OIcel ras ‘rush’, rasa ‘to rush headlong; stumble’, apparently a formation on the a-grade of the same PGmc root).

PGmc Ancestor

(2) *arsaz; (3) *rās-; (4) *rēs- or *ras-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

(2) rasse (raz) ‘arse’; (4) rás ‘race, running' (water)course, channel’, ras ‘rush’
(ONP (2) raz (sb.); (4b) rás (sb.); ras (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

(2) Far rassur, Icel rass, Norw rass; Far arsur, Icel ars, Norw ars, Dan ars, OSw ars; (4) Far rás, Icel rás, Norw rås, Sw dial rås; Icel ras, Norw ras, Sw dial ras

OE Cognate

(2) ears 'fundament, buttocks, arse'; (3) *rās ‘rising’

Phonological and morphological markers

[ON /ɑ:/ < PGmc */e:/ (1)] (may not be applicable)

Summary category

D2

Attestation

No comparable instances are known in ME for any of the senses suggested. For (4) ‘watercourse’, the earliest citation in OED (s.v. race n.1 sense 5.b) is from 1570.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 1570; Cl 446

Bibliography

MED rasse (n.) , OED3 rasse (n.1) , Dance rasse; (1a) AND ras (2), res, DEAF res (m., adj., adv., prép.), FEW rasus; (1b) AND ras (1); (2) Fritzner rass, de Vries ars; rass, Mag. ars; rass, Bj-L. rass, Orel *arsaz, Kroonen *arsa-, AEW ears, DOE ears, OED arse (n.) , EPNE ears; (3) Seebold reis-a-, Orel *rīsanan, Kroonen *rīsan-, AEW rīsan (1), OED rise (v.) ; (4) MED rās(e (n.) , OED3 race (n.1) ; (4a) FEW rasus; (4b) de Vries rás; ras, Mag. rás; rasa (1), Bj-L. rase, Orel *rēso ~ *rēsan, AEW rǣs (1), Bj. 96