Discussion Groups / British English / April 2005

Ta-daa (under 'want,n.1'):

Forms: 1 wand, wond; 4–6 wonte, 7 wounte, 5– wont; 6 wante, (vant),
6– want; 9 dial. waunt, wunt, woont, (h)unt, (h)oont, etc. (see Eng.
Dial. Dict.). [OE. wand, wœnd = Sw. dial. vand (cited by Aasen),
Norw. vand, vaand, vond, vønd, mole, also shrew (also in comb.
moldvond ‘earth-mole’, in contradistinction to vatsvond water-rat,
and in vandskjer shrew, synonymous with musskjer, where the first
element is mus mouse). The word is possibly a shortened form of the
synonymous compound OE. wandeweorpe, MLG. wandworp, windeworp,
wannewörpe, mod.LG. winneworp (Doornkaat Koolman), in which the
second element (f. Teut. *werp- to throw) corresponds to that of
mouldwarp. The root seems clearly to be the Teut. *wend-: *wand- to
turn (see wind, wend vbs.); prob. the word has reference to the
winding passages made by the animal.
  The word is found in the 8th c. glossaries, but does not again
appear till near the end of the 14th c. All the ME. and mod. Eng.
forms agree in the unexplained substitution of t for the final d of
the OE. form. The word is unknown to the dialects of the northern and
north-east midland counties, but is elsewhere in common use.]

HTH, SQUEAK

Giles