Barr

Meaning of Old Norse word "barr"

As defined by the Cleasby & Vigfusson Old Norse to English dictionary:

Old Norse word barr can mean:barr

barr

n. [Norse and Swed. barr means the needles of the fir or pine, opp. to ‘lauf’ or leaves of the ash, eon; cp. barlind, taxus baccaia, and barskógr, ‘needle-wood,’ i. e. fir-wood, Ivar Aasen].

barr

I. the needles or spines of a fir-tree; the word is wrongly applied by Snorri, Edda II, who speaks of the ‘barr’ of an ash;—Icel. has no treeS. In Hm. 50 (Norse poem ?) it is correctly used of a pine, hrörnar þöll er stendr þorpi á, hlýrat henni börkr ne b., Hkv. Hjörv. 16, Edda 11.

barr

II. = barley, [Scot. and North. E. bear, A. S. bere, is four-rowed barley, a coarse kind; bigg in North. E. and Scot. is six-rowed barley, also a coarse kind: cp. ‘the Bigg-market,’ a street in Newcastle-upon-Tyne: barlog, sweet wort, made of barley, Ivar Aasen]; bygg heitir með mönnum, en barr með goðum, men call it ‘bygg,’ but gods ‘bear,’ which shews that barr sounded foreign, and that bygg was the common word, Alvm. 33; Edda (Gl.) 231 has b. under sáðsheiti, v. Lex. Poët. Common phrases in Icel., as bera ekki sitt barr, of one who will never again bear leaves or flourish, metaph. from a withered tree: so Persarum vigui rege bcatior is rendered, lifs míns blómgaðra bar, en buðlungs Persa var, Snot 129. barlegr, adj. vigorous, well-looking.

Possible runic inscription in Younger Futhark:ᛒᛅᚱᚱ
Younger Futhark runes were used from 8th to 12th centuries in Scandinavia and their overseas settlements

Similar entries:

• Barr (I)