Thread:User talk:CodeCat/waithanjan/reply

I can't find anything about *waithanjan. It looks like a very strange word, too. I am finding in Old High German,  in Old Norse and  in Old English. The meanings of the French verbs don't make much sense either... why would a verb meaning "graze" be borrowed as "win"? The double -a- seems suspicious too... But the form reminds me of a very different verb that exists in Gothic,, which actually means "to acquire, to take possession of". That matches the meaning much better. So I don't think the current etymology of and varieties is really correct at all.