Etymology

Occurrences of this adj. go back to a late OE fēre (‘able (to go); fit (for military service); of ships: serviceable, seaworthy’), which has conventionally been derived from the ON adj. represented by OIcel fœrr ‘able, capable, strong; fit for use, safe’, from PGmc *fōri-, formed on the ō-grade of the str. VI v. *faran-. Heid. defines the sense of the cognate WGmc adjectives OFris fēre ‘conducive’, OHG gifuori ‘appropriate, suitable’ and OE gefēre ‘accessible’ as ‘passive’ counterparts to the ‘active’ meanings found in ON, but given the existence of inherited OE gefēre, ON input into the development of late OE fēre, ME fere need not extend beyond the semantic; and even this is doubtful (OED, MED, SPS).

PGmc Ancestor

*fōri-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

fœrr ‘able, capable, strong; fit for use, safe’
(ONP fǿrr (adj.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far førur, Icel fær, Norw før, Dan før, Sw för

OE Cognate

fēre (‘able (to go); fit (for military service); of ships: serviceable, seaworthy’), cp. gefēre 'accessible'

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CC3

Attestation

OE fere ‘able (to go)’ (etc.) occurs several times in late OE (see esp. SPS), and the word is fairly widespread in ME, beginning with the Lambeth Homilies (see Dance 2011: 96). PDE usage is Sc and N Cy. (see OED, EDD).

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

WA 4282

For the debated instance at Gaw 103 see fere (2) (adj.).

Bibliography

MED fēre (adj.), OED fere (adj.), EDD fere (adj.), Bj. 237, SPS 436–7, de Vries fœra, Mag. fær (2), Bj-L. føre, Seebold far-a-, Heid. fōri-, Orel *fōriz, Kroonen *fōri-, DOE fēre (adj.); gefēre (adj.)