Introduction

Presumably, no word form in the Gothic corpus is more debated than aibr. It is found only once, in Matthew 5:23, and appears to be a translation of the Greek word δῶρον ‘gift, offering’. This is a neuter noun as shown by the following attributive possessive tein ‘your (sg.)’. The phrase stands in the accusative singular as the object of the Gothic bairan ‘to bring, carry, bear’. Notice also that in the following verse, the same Greek word is translated twice with the Gothic feminine noun giba, or ‘gift’. In (1) below, the Gothic and Greek texts of the verses in question have been put side by side to facilitate comparison, with an English translation below. Jesus is speaking.

The form aibr obviously needs an explanation. The question is whether it is a genuine Gothic form, possibly having cognates in other Germanic and/ or Indo-European languages, or whether scribal error created it, and if so, what is the right form? Then, it is to be stressed that there is no doubt about the reading aibr.

Suggested conjectures and etymologies

In this section, several conjectures and other explanations of the form aibr are listed and briefly commented on (cf. Maßmann 1857: 596). The lists in (2) and (3) below are not claimed to be exhaustive but almost so, that is, they surely contain the greatest part of all the attempts that have been made to account for the Gothic aibr.

Suggested etymologies for aibr

Here follows an overview of the attempts to explain aibr when it is accepted without any emendation of the form (cf. Must 1978: 156).

(2) List of proposed etymologies for aibr.