Lowden

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. A family name of English and Scottish origin ; a small village in northern Illinois in the United States
2. A surname found mainly in Britain and North America ; a tiny rural community in the American Midwest
3. Used as a family name in English-speaking countries ; a little village in northern Illinois, a place of few residents

Etymology: In Scots, "lowden" means to grow calm or quiet, or to make something so, and it is most often used of weather and wind. It is built from "lown," a Scots word for a sheltered, still place or a calm spell, which in turn descends from Old Norse "logn," meaning calm weather. The ending "-en" turns the adjective or noun into a verb, so "lowden" means something like "to become lown." The pairing shows how the Norse term for still air travelled into Scots and stayed there as a verb of stillness. The "-en" pattern is common in English and Scots verbs formed from adjectives, as in "darken" or "sharpen." The exact dating of the verb's first appearance in print is uncertain, so it is best understood as a Scots formation on an earlier Norse loan rather than a fixed, documented coinage.