levin

See also: Levin

English

Etymology

From Middle English levene. Spellings in Middle English and Early Modern English include leven, levin, levyn, leiven, and leyven.^[1] The earlier etymology is less clear. It is thought to be related to Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌿𐌷𐌼𐌿𐌽𐌹 (lauhmuni) (which see for some more),^[2] ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright, to shine”). Possibly a regular reflex, possibly North Germanic loan, or possibly from a lost substrate.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛvɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛvɪn

Noun

levin (countable and uncountable, plural levins)

1. (archaic, poetic) Lightning; a bolt of lightning; also, a bright flame or light.
   • 1864, George MacDonald, The Old Nurse's Story:

     His soul was like the night around us now, dark, and sultry, and silent, but lighted up by the red levin of wrath and torn by the bellowings of thunder-passion.

   • [c. 1280, “Godrich Displays Great Prowess”, in Frederic Madden, editor, The Lay of Havelok the Dane (in Middle English), London: N[icholas] Trübner & Company, published 1868, page 76, line 2690:

     And forth rith al so leuin fares.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)]

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 48, page 475:

     [N]either blood in face nor life in hart / It left, but both did quite drye vp, and blaſt; / As percing leuin, which the inner part / Of euery thing conſumes, and calcineth by art.

   • 1848, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Preface to the Second London Edition”, in Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. [...] In Two Volumes, copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernh[ard] Tauchnitz Jun., →OCLC, page IX:

     [...] I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time – they or their seed might escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.

   • 1854, Virgil, “The First Georgic”, in W[illiam] Sewell, transl., The Georgics of Virgil, Literally and Rhythmically Translated, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: J. H. Parker, →OCLC, pages 20–21:

     Never, elsewhen, from heaven when all serene / Fell there more levin-bolts; nor flamed so oft / Comets with curses fraught.

Derived terms

• levin brand

Translations

lightning

Bulgarian: мълния (bg) f (mǎlnija) Danish: lynglimt n Finnish: salama (fi) Persian: آذرخش (fa) (âzaraxš), صاعقه (fa) (sâ'eqe) Swedish: ljungeld (sv) (archaic), blixt (sv)

References

1. Joseph T. Shipley, Dictionary of Early English (1955), page 384 (and, for leiven, the Middle English Dictionary)
2. “leven, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Anagrams

• Elvin, Nevil, V line, V-line, liven, v-line

Scots

Numeral

levin

1. Obsolete form of eleeven.

References

• “levin, num.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 7 June 2024, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.