Re: Etymology of Houbit and haben


As for poples 'knee': the city of Basel in Switzerland
is situated on the Rheinknie, on thekneeof the river
Rhine. So it may well be that early villages (huts and
fences built in the wattle and daube technique, using
poplar for uprights and willow for the horizontal
interweaving) on bends or knees of a river gave
rise to poples ...

A better explanation of poples may be a derivation
via poplar ointment used in a case of an (arthritic)
inflammation of the knee and of sore leg muscles:
the unguent made of buds of the black poplar,
Populus nigra, would have been applied and rubbed
into the hollow of the knee and the muscles on the
back of the leg. Poples originally meant hollow of
the knee, back of the knee; poples 'knee' is post
classical Latin (says my dictionary at home).
In early times, poples can't have meant knee cap,
so Hamp is wrong with his derivation of poples from
*kwekwlo. 'Round' was not the meaning of poples.






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Relevant Pages

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