gre – Norwegian verb conjugation

Nominal Forms

Infinitive: gre
Present participle: Past participle: gredd

Cognates

-

Indicative

Conditional

Imperative

du

gr

Translations

comb, to groom the hair with a toothed implement

Etymology

1. From eastern Norwegian dialects, from Old Norse greiða, from Proto-Germanic *garaidijaną (“to make ready”). Doublet of greie (“to be able”).
2. Further discussion
3. Although gre looks as though it were the Dano-Norwegian form corresponding to native greie, this is actually not the case. The etymon is so marginal in Danish (if in fact it exists at all) that it can be ruled out as the source. Rather, gre was backformed form the past forms gredde, gredd, themselves by pre-cluster shortening from greidde, greidd. There are still certain Norwegian dialects with -ei- in the present and -e- in the past forms.
4. The (partial) semantic split between gre (“to groom”) and greie (“to be able”) may have been influenced by related Danish rede (“to groom, order”). However, other reasons are also possible, namely (a) the relative frequency of the past forms and (b) the degree of association with the adjective grei (“easy”). See: Proto-Germanic '*garaidijaną'.

Synonyms & Antonyms

Sample Sentences