Basic meaning=place where people live |
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The root of the common Scandinavian ending by is the verb "to be". The Danes and Vikings mostly stole what they farmed and egotistically named the place after themselves. Quite simply, in early place names, it was the place where some person "be". Much later, at the latter end of Danelaw, by came to be used generally as "farm". Related to this is the word "building". Ingas was the general Germanic word for "people of" so a building is where the people "be" (or live). Another close relative is husband. Hus is "house" and band is a derivative of the verb "to be" or "to be bound to" (as it does sometimes in modern English). So a husband is literally a person who is bound or fixed to a place (by marriage agreement). For the last couple of centuries, a road leading to nowhere but a house or farm (not a through route) is still a "by-road". Laws which only apply to a specific local community are still called "by-laws". Beware of confusion where burg or bury has been shortened (as in Newby Bridge, Cumbria). |
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