eorþe

Eorþe is the Old English noun for earth, ground, or land. It denotes the physical soil and surface, the land as territory, and, in some contexts, the inhabited world or homeland. In poetry and prose it can function in both concrete and cosmological senses, and it is often juxtaposed with heavenly realms in religious or moral discourse.

Etymology: The term derives from Proto-Germanic *erþō and is cognate with Old Norse jörð, Dutch aarde, and German Erde. The Old English form is written eorþe, with the letter thorn (þ) representing the th sound. The word has since largely fallen out of ordinary use outside of historical or scholarly contexts.

Usage: Eorþe appears in a wide range of Old English texts, including poetry, sermons, and legal writs, typically to name the earth as ground or land and as part of expressions describing the world or a homeland. In scholarly work, it is treated as a standard item of the early Germanic lexicon and is studied to illuminate medieval conceptions of the world and environment.

Legacy: Today eorþe is of interest to linguists and historians for illustrating the development of the English lexicon and its connections to other Germanic languages. Modern translations render it as “earth” or “the earth,” depending on context.