plæce

Old English

The spelling of this entry has been normalized according to the principles established by Wiktionary's editor community or recent spelling standards of the language.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin platea, from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa). This must have been borrowed into early Old English after Anglo-Frisian brightening, but before i-mutation as *platiǣ, cf. Læden, mæġester. The Aldredian stem plæċ-, and the Rushworth Gospel gloss plæ(t)s-, illustrate a change in later Old English whereby the sequence -tj- began to be conflated with -ċċ-, cf. ortġeard, fetian; thus serving as evidence that both palatalization, and later affrication, did likely also occur in Old Northumbrian.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈplæ.t͡ʃe/

Noun

plæċe f (Northumbrian)

1. place, open space

   Synonym: worþ

2. street

   Synonym: worþ (Northumbrian)

   Synonym: strǣt

Declension

Weak feminine (n-stem):

	singular	plural
nominative	plæċe	plæċan
accusative	plæċan	plæċan
genitive	plæċan	plæċena
dative	plæċan	plæċum

Mainly found in the dative plural, no singular forms are attested. The form plætsa (acc. pl.) shows regular loss of final -n in late Old Northumbrian; although the ending -an is usually spelled -o, this inconsistency can be explained by late unstressed vowel confusion.

Descendants

• Middle English: place, plaace, plache, plas, plasce, plase, plasse (conflated with Old French place)
  • English: place (dialectal pleace)
    • Pijin: ples
    • Tok Pisin: ples
  • Scots: place, pleece

References

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “plæce”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[1], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.