[OE. Finnas pl., corresponding to ON. Finnr, Sw., Da., Ger. Finne.
In the first and second centuries the name is recorded as L. Fennī (Tac.), Gr. φίννοι (Ptol.). Presumably of Teut. origin; some have conjectured that it is related by ablaut to FEN sb.]
The name used by the Teut. nations for an individual of a people in North-Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, calling themselves Suomi or Suomelaisset, and speaking a language of the Ural-Altaic class. Often applied more widely to include other peoples closely allied ethnically and linguistically to the Finns proper or Suomi.
c. 893. K. Ælfred, Oros., I. i. (Sweet), 17. Þa Finnas, him þuhte, & þa Beormas spræcon neah an ȝeþeode.
1599. trans. K. Ælfred’s Oros., in Hakluyt, Voy., I. He iudged, that the Fynnes and Biarmes speake but one language.
1854. Latham, in Smith’s Dict. Cl. Geog., I. 894. Finn is not the name by which either the Finlanders or the Laplanders know themselves. It is the term by which they are known to the Northmen.
