Secg

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic poetic term for a man or warrior, used in Old English verse ; an obsolete name for sedge, a grasslike plant that grows in wet ground
2. A word from Old English poetry meaning a man or fighter ; an early name for the sedge plant, which thrives in marshes and damp places
3. Old English usage for a warrior or male person in older verse ; a historic term for a rush-like marsh plant commonly called sedge

Etymology: "Secg" is an Old English noun meaning "warrior," "man," or sometimes "sword," and it belongs to the poetic vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxons. Its most famous appearance is in "Beowulf," where it is used as a general term for men, especially fighting men, and it appears in compounds and in heroic verse throughout the surviving manuscripts. The word is closely tied to the warrior culture that the poems celebrate. The word is related to Old Norse "seggr," which also meant "man" or "warrior," and both trace back to a Germanic root with a sense of a man or fighting man. Its appearance in English poetry is one reason scholars link it to the heroic register that Old English verse preserved long after everyday speech had moved on. The word did not survive into Middle English as a common term. It dropped out of ordinary use, and its only lasting trace in English is found in the scholarly and poetic study of the older language.

Synonyms: warrior, man, sword