[3] húfr, hlýr (m., m.) ‘hull, bow’: Húfr referred to the concave shape of the hull and came to be used as a pars pro toto for ‘hull’ (Falk 1912, 51, 53; Jesch 2001a, 143-4). Hlýr (lit. ‘cheek(s)’) could also be used as a pars pro toto for ‘bow’ (Falk 1912, 52; Jesch 2001a, 147). Both words are also used as pars pro toto for ‘ship’, and they are quite common in poetry (LP: húfr; 1. hlýr 4).
References
- Bibliography
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1912. Altnordisches Seewesen. Wörter und Sachen 4. Heidelberg: Winter.