lomvi

Danish

Alternative forms
  • lomvie
  • lomvifve, lomvibe (archaic, Danicized Norwegian)

Etymology

Borrowed from Faroese lomvigi, probably from Old Norse langvé m (“guillemot”).

Noun

lomvi c (singular definite lomvien, plural indefinite lomvier)

  1. a bird of the genus Uria, the murres or guillemots, particularly the common murre (Uria aalge)

Declension
Declension of lomvi
common
gender		 Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative lomvi lomvier lomvi lomviene
genitive lomvis lomviers lomvis lomvienes

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms
  • lomvie, langve, langvie (Ivar Aasen)

Etymology

According to the Norwegian Dictionary, from Old Norse langvé m (“guillemot”). The variants starting with lang-, similar to the Icelandic one, is attested by Aasen. Compare Icelandic langvigi, langvía and western Icelandic langvíi. Compare also Irish lamhaidh, English lavy and Orkney Scots weeo (“kittiwake”).

The form lomvi itself may be from Danish lomvi, from Faroese lomvigi. According to the Danish Dictionary, the Faroese word is derived from Old Norse lómr (“bird of family Gaviidae”) and Old Norse -vígi (like in atvígi (“assault, murder”)). The Swedish Academy's Dictionary gives a similar etymology for lom- in dialectal Swedish lomvia (“guillemot”). The Norwegian word is also attested in old Danish sources as lomvibe and lomvifve, pointing towards the original -gi ending.

On the other hand, the -m- sound may have occurred as an assimilation of -ng-. [1] In this case, the word has nothing to do with Old Norse lómr, but rather with Old Norse langr (“long”). Lang- and lom- may also be etymologically unrelated, because they are not the main part of the term, but are interchangeable. For example, in Icelandic, the ending -vía is also used for rare kinds of guillemots, like hringvía and geirvía. If neither the first nor last parts are related, Norwegian lomvi and langvie may not be etymologically related at all, despite having the same sense and sounding alike.

Neither ending -vé or -vigi are probably related to Proto-Germanic *wīwô (“bird of prey”). [2]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /²lʊmʋɪ/

Noun

lomvi m (definite singular lomvien, indefinite plural lomviar, definite plural lomviane)

  1. a seabird of genus Uria, the murres or guillemots, particularly the common murre (Uria aalge)

References
  1. W.B. Lockwood (1974) Faroese Bird-Name Origins
  2. Kroonen, Guus Jann (2009) Consonant and vowel gradation in the Proto-Germanic n-stems (PhD thesis)‎, Leiden: Leiden University, page 93
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