adv.
Pe wrange; Cl wrank
‘unjustly, wrongly’
(Modern English wrong)Adverbial form of wrang (adj.).
PGmc Ancestor
*wrang-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
vrangr, rangr (adj.) ‘awry, not straight; wrong, unjust, unrighteous’
(ONP rangr (adj.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far rangur, Icel rangr, Norw vrang, rang, Dan vrang, Sw vrång
OE Cognate
cp. wrang (n.) ‘wrong, injustice’, ?wrang (adj.) 'rough, uneven'
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
C1
For late OE and the ME n. and adj., see wrang (adj.). The adv. is first securely attested in c1275(?a1216) Owl & N.(Clg A.9) and then fairly common and widespread from the late 14c.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Pe 488, 614; Cl 891
There is some debate about the interpretation of the phrase <al wrank> at Cl 891: <wrank> is usually interpreted as a variant of the adv. wrang (e.g. GollCl) or a sb. use of the adj. wrang (Vant; Menner labels it a 'quasi-adv.'). Anderson (36) argues that a mark on the <l> in <al> in the original ink indicates it was intended to be 'crossed out' and thus reads an instance of the rare ME compound awrank (see MED s.v. awrong).