n.
'plough'
(Modern English plough, plow)OE plōg, plōh 'plough-land, what a yoke of oxen could plough in a day' is first attested in late texts, and this, combined with its divergence in sense from other descendants of PGmc *plōg- (cp. OIcel plógr, OFris plōch, MLG plōg 'plough', OHG pfluog 'plough; livelihood'), has led some authorities to suggest that it might have been borrowed from ON. It is used synonymously with late OE plōgesland 'what a yoke of oxen could plough in a season/year?, plough-land', which is usually derived from ON, cp. OIcel plógsland (although the amount of land referred to does not coincide), largely on the basis of dialect distribution (SPS 99-100). However, either the OE or ON word could represent a loan from another WGmc language (independently, or via the other: see further Durkin 2009: 261-4, SPS 452 (with references) and OED3), and SPS (452) makes the case that native derivation could also explain the apparent semantic change: an original sense of OE plōg corresponding with that found in the other Gmc languages simply might not have been recorded before the 12c. (cp. the senses of Lat aratrum, and OE sulh 'plough'/Kentish sullung 'the fiscal unit corresponding to the hide').
PGmc Ancestor
*plōg-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
plógr 'plow'
(ONP plógr (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far plógv, plog, Icel plógur, Norw plog, Dan plog, plov, Sw plog
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
BB2a
First appears in late OE (see SPS 451); common and widespread in ME.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Cl 68