What did the etymons of “on by + out, over, up” mean?
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What did the etymons of "on by out", "on by up", "on by over" mean?
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Why did Old English tack and jam these different prepositions together? E.g. didn't ufan alone mean "above"? Why prefix it with a- and -b- that appear to conribute nothing to the meaning?
about [OE]
About in Old English times meant ‘around the outside of’; it did not develop its commonest present-day meaning, ‘concerning’, until the 13th century. In its earliest incarnation it was onbūtan, a compound made up of on and būtan ‘outside’ (this is the same word as modern English but, which was itself originally a compound, formed from the ancestors of by and out – so broken down into its ultimate constituents, about is on by out).
→ BUT, BY, OUT
above [OE]
As in the case of about, the a- in above represents on and the -b- element represents by; above (Old English abufan) is a compound based on Old English ufan. This meant both ‘on top’ and ‘down from above’; it is related to over, and is probably descended from a hypothetical West Germanic ancestor *ufana, whose uf- element eventually became modern English up. So in a sense, above means ‘on by up’ or ‘on by over’.
→ BY, ON, UP
Word Origins (2005 2e) by John Ayto. p 2.
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