heft
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /hɛft/
ipa: /heft/
rhymes: -ɛft
Forms: form: hefts
form: hefting
form: hefted
form: hefted
form: haft
Etymology: The noun is borrowed from Scots heft, haft (“pasture which sheep are familiar with; attachment of sheep to a pasture; number of sheep grazing on such a pasture; (obsolete) place of residence; situation”), probably from Old Norse hefð (“occupation; possession; prescriptive right”), from hafa (“to have; to keep, retain”), from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to have; to hold”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”).
The verb is borrowed from Scots heft (“to cause (cattle or sheep) to become familiar with a pasture; of animals: to become familiar with a pasture; (figurative) of a person: to become settled in an occupation or place”), probably from Old Norse hefða (“to acquire prescriptive rights”), from hefð (noun): see above.
Both the noun and verb may have been influenced by Scots heft (“(noun) handle of an implement, haft; (verb) to fit (an implement) with a handle”).
Senses: examples: text: For I had been "hefting" (as the business is called in our Galloway land) a double score of lambs which had just been brought from a neighbouring lowland farm to summer upon our scanty upland pastures. Now it is the nature of sheep to return if they can to their mother-hill, or, at least, to stray farther and farther off, seeking some well-known landmark. So, till such new-comers grow satisfied and "heft" (or attach) themselves to the soil, they must be watched carefully both night and day.
ref: 1898, S[amuel] R[utherford] Crockett, “The Year Terrible”, in The Standard Bearer, London: Methuen and Co. […], →OCLC, page 6:
topics: agriculture
business
lifestyle
glosses: To accustom (a flock or group of farm animals, chiefly cattle or sheep) to a piece of pastureland.
examples: text: [I]t may be as well that Alan and you do not meet till he is hefted as it were to his new calling.
ref: 1824 June, [Walter Scott], “Letter IX. Alexander Fairford, W.S. to Mr Darsie Latimer.”, in Redgauntlet, […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 193:
topics: agriculture
business
lifestyle
glosses: To establish or settle (someone) in an occupation or place of residence.
examples: text: […] I hae heard him say, that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that wild muirland parish than in the Canogate of Edinburgh.
ref: 1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter II, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume IV, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, page 28:
english: […] I had heard him say, that the root of the matter was more deeply hefted in that wild moorland parish than in the Canongate of Edinburgh.
translation: […] I had heard him say, that the root of the matter was more deeply hefted in that wild moorland parish than in the Canongate of Edinburgh.
bold_translation_offsets: 69
75
topics: agriculture
business
lifestyle
glosses: To establish or plant (something) firmly in a place; to fix, to root, to settle.
topics: agriculture
business
lifestyle
glosses: Of a thing: to establish or settle itself in a place.