Etymology
One suggested etymology of the word, from Edward Lye in the 18th century, is in the Icelandic territorial division hreppr, meaning 'district or tract of land'. However, this is rejected in the New English Dictionary, and according to the English Place-Name Society 'phonologically impossible'.
First suggested by William Somner in the 17th century, it seems that the derivation of the word from the Old English rāp, also suggested by F.E. Sawyer's has been made practically certain. The suggestion that ropes were used to mark out territory, was well countered by J.H. Round, asking "do those who advance such views realize the size of the districts they have to deal with?" However, Heinrich Brunner explained the application of 'rope' to an administrative district by the old German custom of defining the limits of the 'peace' of popular open-air courts by stakes and ropes, the ropes then giving a name first to the court and then afterwards to the area of its jurisdiction, and produced a case where reep, the Dutch cognate of rāp, is applied to such a judicial area. The parish of Rope, in Cheshire is one place name in England derived from the word rāp.
Read more about this topic: Rape (county Subdivision)
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)