shetland

shetland · noun¹

From Shetland sheep.

Shetland · proper noun, noun²

1. Old Norse · derived fromHjaltland
2. Middle Scots · derived fromȜetland
3. Scots · derived fromShetland
4. English todayShetland

From Scots Shetland, Middle Scots Ȝetland, from Old Norse Hjaltland, by surface analysis, hjalt (“hilt”) + land (“land”). Andrew Jennings suggests the name derives from the tribal name Calēdonēs (as in Caledonia), considering the geographer Ptolemy already called the sea north of Scotland ὠκεανός Δουηκαλεδονίος (ōkeanós Douēkaledoníos); if this is correct, the borrowing into Germanic would need to have occurred at such an early date that it took part in the Germanic sound-shift, changing *kalid- to *halit-, after which it underwent folk etymological reshaping to Old Norse hjalt (“hilt”).

Words from the same roots