v. (past sg.)
‘met, greeted’
(Modern English yain)Some semantic influence from ON is possible, but the form and sense of this v. are probably best accounted for by native derivation. Verbs representing a PGmc *gagnjan- are attested in the same sense in ON, cp. OIcel gegna ‘to meet, pay, discharge, be fitting, signify’, and in continental WGmc, viz. MLG jegenen, OHG gaganen, geginen ‘to meet’ (see further gayn). OE has gȳnan (< early WS *giegnan) recorded only with the rather different meaning ‘to drive’, but given its initial /j/, ME ʒayned is evidently native in form and it is almost always explained as an endogenous development, with reference only to OE gegegnian ‘to meet, encounter’ (thus OED, MED, GDS). However, late OE wk. 2 gegegnian is attested only in the Nhb DurRitGl 1 (45.12), and (always assuming that <g> here does not stand for /ɡ/, making this the first record of the Norse-derived v. ME gayn) it is conceivable that it and ME ʒayned owe their meaning ‘to meet’ to the influence of ON gegna (see esp. TG 126 and McGee 334).
PGmc Ancestor
*gagnjan-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
gegna ‘to meet, pay, discharge, be fitting, signify’
(ONP gegna (vb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far gegna, Icel gegna, Norw gjegna, Dan gjenne, Sw dial gena
OE Cognate
gȳnan (< early WS *giegnan) ‘to drive’; cp. gegegnian ‘to meet, encounter’
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
CCC3a
MED has only three further citations, twice from c1275(?a1216) Owl & N.(Clg A.9) and once from c1390 Bi west (Vrn).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 1724