Dag-mál

Meaning of Old Norse word "dag-mál"

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

Old Norse word dag-mál can mean:dag-mál

dag-mál

n. (vide dagr), prop. ‘day-meal,’ one of the divisions of the day, usually about 8 or 9 o’clock A. m.; the Lat. hora tertia is rendered by ‘er vér köllum dagmál, ‘which we call d., Hom. 142; cnn er ekki liðit af dagmálum, Hom. (St.) 10. Acts ii. 15; in Glúm. 342 we are told that the young Glum was very lazy, and lay in bed till day-meal every morning, cp. also 343; Hrafn. 28 and O. H. l. 18—á einum morni milli rismála ok dagmála—where distinction is made between rismál (rising time) and dagmál, so as to make a separate dagsmark (q. v.) of each of them; and again, a distinction is made between ‘midday’ and dagmal, Ísl. ii. 334. The dagmal is thus midway between ‘rising’ and ‘midday,’ which accords well with the present use. The word is synonymous with dagverðarmál, breakfast-time, and denotes the hour when the ancient Icel. used to take their chief meal, opposed to náttmál, night-meal or supper-time, FmS. viii. 330; even the MSS. use dagmál and dagverðarmál indiscriminately; cp. also Sturl. iii. 4 C; Rb. 452 says that at full moon the ebb takes place ‘at dagmálum.’ To put the dagmál at 7.30 A. m., as Pál Vídalin does, seems neither to acccord with the present use nor the passage in Glum or the eccl. hora tertia, which was the nearest hour answering to the Icel, calculation of the day. In Fb. i. 539 it is said that the sun set at ‘eykð’ (i. e. half-past three o’clock), but rose at ‘dagmál’ which puts the dagmal at 8.30 A. m.

dag-mál

COMPDS: dagmálastaðr, dagmalatið.

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