*bēlą

Runic: ᛒᛖᛚᚨ Pronunciation: /ˈbɛː.lɑ̃/

noun · neuter · a-stem

Meanings

fire
pyre

Etymology

Probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₁-tló-m from root bʰeh₁- (‘to foment; warm; bathe’) with an instrument suffix (Kroonen 2017), thus ‘an instrument of warming’. This etymology does not suffer the issue of the unexplained lengthened grade of an etymology from *bʰel- (‘? to blaze, burn; to glow, shine, be bright or brightly colored; ? bright flame, fire; shiny white’).

Declension

Case	Singular	Plural
Nom.	bēlą	bēlō
Acc.	bēlą	bēlō
Gen.	bēlas, bēlis	bēlǫ̂
Dat.	bēlai	bēlamaz
Inst.	bēlō	bēlamiz
Voc.	bēlą	bēlō

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Descendants

*bāl (Proto-West Germanic)
- bǣl, bǣlfȳr (Old English)
  - bale, balefire (Middle English)
    - bale, balefire (English)
    - bale, baill (Scots)
bál (Old Norse)
- bål (Danish)
- bál (Faroese)
- bál, bálit (Icelandic)
- bål (Norwegian Bokmål)
- bål (Norwegian Nynorsk)
bál (Old Norse)
- bāl (Old Swedish)
  - bål (Swedish)

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