Afgivere

Afgivere is a rarely attested term found in a small number of historical Dutch-language sources. It is generally treated as an archaic verb meaning to surrender or to hand over something to another party. The form is thought to be built from the prefix af- meaning away or off and geven meaning to give, signaling a sense of completion or delivery. In modern Dutch, the standard equivalents are afgeven or leveren, with overhandigen used for giving something to another person and zich overgeven for surrender in a more formal or figurative sense.

In the historical record, afgifere appears in a limited set of manuscripts and legal documents, typically in contexts describing the transfer of objects, documents, or authority, or in narratives of surrender. Because spelling and usage varied regionally and over time, the form is not uniform and is now considered obsolete by contemporary speakers.

Linguists and historians study afivere as part of the broader evolution of Dutch verb formation with the af- prefix. The term helps illustrate how older texts encoded actions of handing over or surrendering, which have since shifted to more common verbs in modern Dutch. For most readers, afgifere is of interest mainly to philologists, lexicographers, and those examining historical legal or administrative language. Related terms in the modern language include afgeven and afgifte, which preserve the core semantic field.