Bycgan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to acquire something by paying a price for it, the ancestor of the modern word buy
2. An Old English verb for purchasing goods or property in exchange for payment, from which the English word buy descends
3. The Old English term for obtaining an item or possession through a financial exchange, a root of the modern verb to buy

Etymology: Old English "bycgan" meant "to buy," and it is the ancestor of the modern English verb, though the modern form has a surprising twist. Its root is the Germanic "*bugjan," which is linked to the same source as "bow," the verb of bending. The likely connection is that buying was once a matter of pledging or giving something in exchange, and "bugjan" carried the sense of bending or pledging a debt, so the link to bending is more a semantic bridge than a settled fact. The most striking thing about "bycgan" is what happened to its sound. Old English "cg" was pronounced like the "dg" in "edge," and over the centuries the "y" and "c" shifted into the modern spelling "buy" and pronunciation. The word that gave us "bye" and "by" in phrases such as "by and by" is a separate, unrelated word, but the two often get confused because they sound alike today. Note: "bycgan" was a verb form (infinitive). Its past tense forms, such as "bohte," which became "bought," follow the same root.