Domsettend, worulddema or dempster? Medieval English references to the noun judge

Abstract

The aim of the present brief study is to review selected Medieval English lexical representations of the noun judge ‘one who tries cases and interprets the laws’ (MED) and their semantic development in the history of English (cf.  OE domsettend, dempster, worulddema). The study uses standard databases, such as Bosworth−Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (B−T), Clark Hall’s A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (CASD), Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC), Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST), Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE), The Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English Prose (ICoMEP), Middle English Dictionary (MED), the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Scottish National Dictionary (SND), Thesaurus of Old English (TOE), A Thesaurus of English Word Roots (TEWR), Collins Dictionary (CD) and Merriam-Webster Dictionary (MWD).

 A preliminary search for the terms in question confirms either their decline shortly after being first recorded in Old English (cf. domsettend, gesetla, worulddema) or their survival into the Middle or Early Modern English periods (cf. doomer, doomsman, judger). Only two nouns, judge and jurist, have survived beyond Medieval English and are frequent in current use.