Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
erchan. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
erchan, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
erchan in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
erchan you have here. The definition of the word
erchan will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
erchan, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Old High German
Etymology
Apparently from Proto-Germanic *erknaz, thus cognate with 𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌺𐌽𐍃 (airkns, “holy, pure (of faith)”) and Old English eorcnanstan (“precious stone, gem”) (see eorcnan, erce). An archaic Germanic word from the sacral sphere, its original meaning is difficult to reconstruct as it belonged to the pagan religious vocabulary obscured after Christianization.
Pokorny (1959) tentatively groups the word with Proto-Indo-European *h₂erǵ- (“glittering, white”) (compare Ancient Greek ἀργός (argós), Latin argentum), but Gothic 𐌰𐍂𐌺- (ark-) may also be an early loan of (ἀρχι- (arkhi-, “archi-”)); compare Ulfilan 𐌰𐍂𐌺𐌰𐌲𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌿𐍃 (arkaggilus) for archangelus.
Adjective
erchan
- sublime, chief, special, egregious, genuine, true (?)
- der erchano sangheri (=egregius psaltes, Isaiah 4:2)
- ercna euua (=certa lege Isaiah 2:1)
- allero specierum erchenosta (=speciem specialissimam)
- Also ih tes mennisken boteh einen toten mennisken heizo, nals nicht erchenen mennisken (Notker trans. Boethius 5 = Nam uti cadauer hominem mortuum dixeris, simpliciter uero hominem appellare non possis "For though you might call a cadaver 'a dead man', you cannot just simply call it 'a man' .")
Derived terms
Descendants
- German: Erchtag (“Tuesday”) (archaic, Bavarian)
References
- Eberhard Gottlieb Graff, Hans Ferdinand Massmann, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz, oder, Wörterbuch der althochdeutschen Sprache, 1834, p. 468.
- Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (1835, trans. Stallybrass 1888), 113; 182—185.
- Bopp, Comparative Grammar (1815, trans. Eastwick 1862), p. 1285.
- Hjalmar Falk, Alf Torp, Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit, part 3, 5th ed., Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979, →ISBN, p. 26.
- Lorenz Diefenbach, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, J. Baer, 1851 p. 23.