up-prefix

a.

b.

a. In Old English the placing of up immediately before a verbal form was determined by the syntactical principles which have been explained in the article on out- prefix. The number of verbs with which up was commonly employed in this way is not large; it includes ábrecan, áhebban, árǽran, árísan, etc., gán, hebban, rǽcan, springan, spryttan, stigan, yrnan. It is difficult to determine in how many of these the adverb had become a real prefix, but apparently it had attained this function in some forms, as upáhebban and uphebban. In Middle English the use of the prefix is thoroughly established, though it is not always possible to distinguish between real compounds and simple precedence of the adverb on metrical or rhetorical grounds. A number of these uncertain examples may be found under various senses of up adv.¹ Of those established compounds which require separate entry some occur as early as the 13th century, as upbraid, -break, -bring, -come, -go, -nim, -stand, etc., and many more are found from about 1300 onwards, as upbear, -call, -cast, -draw, -give, -heave, -hold, -leap, etc. Others have been constantly added during the following centuries, so that even with the disappearance of earlier instances the type has been well maintained down to the present day. A considerable proportion, however, occur only in poetry, and are simple substitutions for the verb followed by the adverb, although they are regarded as real compounds and written as one word.In the Old English collocations or compounds the prefix has regularly the sense of ‘upwards’. In Middle English it also assumes various transferred or figurative senses of the adverb, and latterly may have any meaning which has attached to this in connection with a verb, e.g. upbind to bind up; up-pen to pen up; upspeed, to speed up, etc. The same variety of meaning naturally occurs also in combination with participles and verbal nouns.In addition to those which are entered as main words, the following examples illustrate the tendency to employ the prefix in place of the adverb. The first group contains examples earlier than 1650, the second those of more recent origin (mostly after 1800); where no definition is added, the meaning is that of the simple verb in collocation with up.The earlier group could be considerably enlarged by the inclusion of examples from Scottish poets of the 16th cent., esp. Douglas, who freely employs such forms as upblese (= blaze), -flow, -glide, -hese (= raise), -kindle, -rax (= stretch), -rive, -sprent, -stend, -stour, -strike, -swak, -warp, -wrele. Instances from other authors are upbrace, -keek, -lese (= gather), -sit, -skail, -spread, -sprinkle, -win (= rise).

b. The use of up with past participles, originally syntactical, gave rise to compounds of which several had already so far established themselves in Old English that derivatives in -nes and -líce were formed from them. Examples are up(á)hafen, upáhefed, up(á)sprungen, upástigen, upcumen. In Middle English a number of new formations appear; among the earlier of these are upborne, -drawn, -folden, -hung, -laid, -lifted, -reft, -risen, -set. In the 16th and 17th cent. there are also frequent examples, and the type is still usual, but at all periods these forms have been mainly employed in verse. When used attributively the stress is normally on the prefix, but metrical instances frequently retain it on the stem.The following are illustrations of casual examples of earlier and later date; a few others are used by Scottish writers of the 16th cent., esp. Douglas.