sb. and a. Forms: 1 Angul-, Angel-, Ongol-seaxan sb. pl., 7– Anglo-Saxon, -saxon, 9 Anglosaxon. [Prob. in 9th c., as certainly in 17th, ad. L. Anglo-Saxones, -Saxon-icus, in which Anglo-, comb. form of Anglus, -ī, is used adverbially, as in similar L. and Gr. compounds, as sacro-sanctus sacredly sanctioned, Ἰνδο-σκυθία Indian Scythia, Scythia of the Indus, Συρο-φοῖνιξ, L. Syrophœnix, Phœnician of Syria. Cf. also Gallo-græci, and in later use Mœso-Gothi Goths of Mœsia. Hence Anglo-Saxones, Angel-seaxan = English Saxons, Saxons of England or of the Angul-cynn (gens Anglorum, Bæda), as distinguished from the Ald-Seaxan (Antiqui Saxones, Bæda) or Old-Saxons of the continent. The earliest L. forms were Angli Saxones, Saxones Angli (two words ‘English Saxons’), whence Angli-Saxones, and finally Anglo-Saxones, Anglosaxones. App. of continental origin; in OE. use, rare in the Eng. form; not uncommon in Latin documents, down to 1100.]
I. English Saxon, Saxon of England: orig. a collective name for the Saxons of Britain as distinct from the ‘Old Saxons’ of the continent. Hence, properly applied to the Saxons (of Wessex, Essex, Middlesex, Sussex, and perhaps Kent), as distinct from the Angles.
A. sb. (the only contemporary use).
[c. 775. Paulus Diaconus, IV. xxiii. Vestimenta … qualia Angli Saxones habere solent. Ibid., IV. xxxvii. E Saxonum Anglorum genere duxit uxorem.
c. 885. Charter, Cod. Dip., V. 134. Ego Ælfredus, gratia Dei, Angul-Saxonum rex.]
934. Chart. C. D., V. 218–9. Ic Æthelstán, Ongol-Saxna cyning and Brytænwalda eallæs þyses iʓlandes.
955. Chart. C. D., II. 303. He hafað ʓeweorðad mid cynedóme Angulseaxna Eádred cyning and cásere totius Britanniæ.
B. adj. In this Dictionary, the language of England before 1100 is called, as a whole, ‘Old English’ (OE.); Anglo-Saxon, when used, is restricted to the Saxon as distinguished from the Anglian dialects of Old English; thus we may say that eald was the Anglo-Saxon (i.e., West Saxon and Kentish) form of the normal OE. ald (retained in Anglian), whence, and not from eald, we have mod.Eng. old.
II. Extended to the entire Old English people and language before the Norman Conquest.
For these there was apparently at first no collective name; subsequently, the name Englisc (Anglish, English) was extended from the dialect of the Angles (the first to be committed to writing) to all dialects of the vernacular, whether Anglian or Saxon; and Angul-cynn (Angle-kin, gens Anglorum), and later still, during the struggle with the Danes, ‘English’ and ‘Englishman,’ to all speakers of the vernacular in any dialect Angle or Saxon. After the Norman Conquest, the natives and the new incomers were at first distinguished as ‘English’ and ‘French,’ but, as the latter also became in a few generations ‘English’ politically and geographically, men’s notions of ‘English’ changed accordingly, so that the 12th-c. chroniclers could no longer apply the word distinctively to the people of Edward the Confessor and Harold, for whom therefore they recalled the name ‘Saxon,’ applicable enough to the West Saxon dynasty, but incorrect when extended to the whole Angle-kin over whom they ruled. At the hands of the Latin chroniclers, often foreigners, to whom the historical relations of Saxons and Angles were not very obvious, a similar extension of meaning had been given to Anglo-Saxones. But this name did not reappear in English till after 1600, when, with the revival of OE. learning, historians and philologists again felt the need of distinguishing English ‘Saxon’ from the Saxon of Germany. The modern use dates from Camden, who himself used Anglo-Saxon-es, -icus, in Latin, and English Saxon in his vernacular works. His translator adapted the Lat. as Anglo-Saxon, which gradually displaced ‘English Saxon,’ first as sb., and finally as adj. also. But it was applied, as Saxon had been for 500 years erroneously applied, to ‘Old English’ as a whole. This has led in turn to an erroneous analysis of the word, which has been taken as = Angle + Saxon, a union of Angle and Saxon; and in accordance with this mistaken view, modern combinations have been profusely formed in which Anglo- is meant to express ‘English and …,’ ‘English in connection with …,’ as ‘the Anglo-Russian war’; whence, on the same analogy, Franco-German, Turko-Russian, etc. See ANGLO-.
A. sb.
[1586–1607. Camden, Brit., 94. Nunc … Anglo-Saxones ad differentiam eorum in Germania, vocatos. Ibid., 128. Maiores nostri Anglo-Saxones Wittena-ʓe-mott, .i. Prudentum Conuentus … vocârunt.]
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 177. The Anglo Saxons our ancestors termed it Wittena-ʓe-mott, that is, an assembly of the wise. Ibid., I. 127 (title), English Saxons; (marg. title) Anglo-Saxons.
[1605. Camden, Rem. (1614), 20. The English-Saxon tongue came in by the English-Saxons out of Germany.]
1726. Tindal, Rapin’s Eng. (1757), I. I. 90. They were generally called Saxons, yet they had sometimes the compound name of Anglo-Saxons given them.
1735. Thomson, Liberty, IV. (T.). Ere, blood-cemented, Anglo-Saxons saw Egbert and Peace on one united throne.
1846. Wright, Mid. Ages, I. i. 2. Public attention … was first drawn to the writings of the Anglo-Saxons at the time of the reformation.
a. 1861. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng. (1864), III. 596. I must … substitute henceforward the true and antient word English for the unhistorical and conventional term Anglo-Saxon, an expression conveying a most false idea in our civil history.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1877), I. 548. I speak therefore of our forefathers, not as ‘Saxons,’ or even as ‘Anglo-Saxons,’ but as they spoke of themselves, as Englishmen.
B. adj. (absol. The Old English language.)
[1586–1607. Camden, Brit., 121. In Anglo-Saxonicis legibus nusquam comparet.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 168. In the English-Saxon lawes, it is nowhere to be seene.
1605. Camden, Rem. (1614), 21. The English-Saxon conquerors, altred the tongue which they found here wholly. Ibid., 70. Folc, the English-Saxon woorde for people.
1715. E. Elstob (title), The Rudiments of Grammar for the English Saxon Tongue.
1726. Ayliffe, Parerg., 11. Under all the English Saxon Kings.]
1726. Tindal, Rapin’s Eng. (1757), I. III. 157. The Anglo-Saxon kings were naturally very restless.
1783. Bailey, Anglosaxon, the Saxon language as it was spoken in England.
1876. Sweet, Anglo-Sax. Reader, xi. The oldest stage of English before the Norman Conquest is now called ‘Old English,’ but the older name of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is still very generally used.
III. Used rhetorically for English in its wider or ethnological sense, in order to avoid the later historical restriction of ‘English’ as distinct from Scotch, or the modern political restriction of ‘English’ as opposed to American of the United States; thus applied to (1) all persons of Teutonic descent (or who reckon themselves such) in Britain, whether of English, Scotch or Irish birth; (2) all of this descent in the world, whether subjects of Great Britain or of the United States.
A. sb.
1853. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt. Part. (1858), I. xv. 51. Sometimes they stand on the right and the necessity for the European to live by plunder; and sometimes … they concentrate their claim upon the Anglo-Saxon.
B. adj.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 314. The chief reason stated for the recognition of the pirates, is that they are of the Anglo-Saxon race.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 143. The Puritan part of the Anglosaxon colony had little right to complain.
1871. Spectator, 22 April, 467/2. England’s best alliance would be the free confederation of the English race in every part of the world. Change ‘English’ for ‘Anglo-Saxon,’ and in that sentence lies the policy of the future.
