spainis

• spanis, spannis, spaņģis (dialectal)

Borrowed from Middle Low German span (“wooden bucket”), likely from the same ultimate source as English span, similar to Swedish spann (“pail, bucket”).

This generated the dialectal form spanis, spannis; in Kurzeme, also *spandis > spaņģis (with ģ probably from genitive *spandya); compare Lithuanian dialectal forms spandis, spañgis (possibly borrowings from Kurzeme dialects).

Two explanations have been proposed for the irregular ai (instead of an(n)) in the literary form:

• influence from dialectal (Kurzeme) *spainis, a variant of spailis, spails (“set of fishing equipment”), at first in Kurzeme, and later on spreading to other dialects; or a contamination between an earlier form *span(n)is and Livonian pàynal (“wooden round container”),
• or its Ewe dialectal synonym paenas, paenal.

The borrowing is first mentioned as spanis, spannis in 17th-century dictionaries; by the end of that century, the variant spainis is also attested. In the first Bible translations one finds spaņģis. The literary form spainis progressed slowly: in the 19th century, J. Alunāns still used spannis, spanis; in dictionaries from the 1870s and 1880s, spainis was only a variant. Only at the beginning of the 20th century did spainis begin to dominate, when spannis, spanis was perceived (and avoided) as a Germanism.^[1]

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spainis m (2nd declension)

1. bucket, pail (cylindrical metal, wooden, or plastic container with a handle)

   piena spainis ― milk bucket

   emaljēts spainis ― enamelled bucket

   nest ūdeni ar spaiņiem ― to carry water with buckets

   koka, alumīnija, plastmasas spainis ― wooden, aluminum, plastic bucket