adv.
‘suitably, neatly’
(Modern English )Most likely of native derivation, but a Scandinavian source has also been suggested: Madden (followed by Morris) glosses ‘secretly, closely’ and suggests ‘Dan. hemmelig ‘secret’ and GDS (glossing ‘closely’) offers a ‘cp.’ to ON heimolliga ‘privately’, i.e. OIcel heimolliga, heimulliga (later heimugliga) ‘duly, with full title to possession; privately, intimately’ (and also compares OE hām, hǣm- 'home'). This is the adv. corresponding to heimoll ‘homely, domestic; property in one's full possession, at one's free disposal (legal)’, a derivation on ON heimr ‘home; abode, land, region, village, world’ < PGmc *xaimaz; cp. Go háims, OE hām, OFris hēm, OS hēm, OHG heim (though Scandinavian etymologists often regard the adv. form as a borrowing from MLG heimelīk (thus de Vries, Mag.)). But ON heim- cannot lie directly behind ME heme unless we assume OEN monophthongization (never demonstrably attested in Norse-derived vocabulary in Gaw). It is therefore better to follow other authorities in assuming a formation in OE -līce upon the attested OE gehǣme ‘customary’, which is best explained as a native derivation on the same PGmc root as the ON words above, i.e. OE hām ‘home’ (thus TGD, MED, Thomas 1913b: 312, Emerson 1922: 368, Magoun 1937: 133); and cp. also OHG heimlich, MLG heimelīk.
PGmc Ancestor
*xaimaz
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
heimolliga, heimulliga (later heimugliga) ‘privately, intimately; duly, with full title to possession’
(ONP heimulliga (adv.),)
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
cp. Icel heimileg(u)r, Norw heimeleg, Dan hemmelig, Sw heimlig
OE Cognate
gehǣme (adj.) ‘customary’
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
CCC1a
Hapax legomenon
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 1852