ONlwSG

¹plod m. [pʰɫ̪ɔd̪̥], gen. ploda -[ə] and pluid [pʰɫ̪ud̥ʲ], ‘fleet (of boats)’ is derived from ON floti m. ‘raft; fleet’ by Meyer (1891, 461), Craigie (1894, 156), MacBain (1896), Robertson (1906a, 39), Bugge (1912, 293), MacLennan (1925) and McDonald (2009, 354). De Vries (1962) follows Bugge, although he cites OG plot, which is unattested. Marstrander (1915a, 64) cites unassigned plod < ON floti in order to exemplify ON o yielding Ir. o, and (p. 106) SG and Mx plod from ploda 

Marstrander’s form ploda is hypothetical and should really be asterisked.

< ON floti (leg. obl. flota) in order to exemplify an original ON f- yielding Ir. p- via back-formation. MacBain, Bugge (so also de Vries) and McDonald also derive Mx plod from ON floti.

Mx plod occurs only in Y Kelly 1866, who lists ‘plod, 

For the sense ‘pool’, see ²plod.

as flod “a pool, a fleet” ’, plodagh ‘floating’ and plodey ‘to float, sail in a fleet’. These are probably ghost words and adopted by Y Kelly from Scottish Gaelic, cf. ibid.: flod ‘“a fleet” (G[aelic] plod)’, and floddey ‘to float, assemble in a fleet’; Cregeen 1834: fload ‘float’, and floadey ‘floating’; Kneen 1978: fleet ‘flod; luingys’; and Kelly 1991^˄: fleet ‘flod’.

The Scottish Gaelic form of this word is predominantly plod, e.g. MacDomhnuill 1741, 110: ‘fleet, navy’; Shaw 1780: ‘pool, fleet’; Mac Farlan 1795: ‘a fleet anchoring’; Armstrong 1825: †plod ‘pool, fleet’; HSS 1828: ‘fleet’; and M^cAlpine 1832: ‘fleet of shipping, carnage, damage’, 

The origin of SG plod (also plodraich) in the senses ‘carnage, damage’ is unclear, but perhaps has something to do with Scots plod and plodder ‘to toil continuously, drudge, slave’ (SND^˄).

although a ~ o alternation is recorded in Kintyre (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: plad [pɫɑd̪]). A rarer form flod is listed in HSS: ‘“fleet”, Hebridean’, and M^cAlpine: ‘flod for plod, “float; a fleet” ’.

For the doublet plod ~ flod, cf. SG plùr ~ flùr ‘flour; flower’, ultimately from OFr. flọur (cf. Ir. plúr (Risk 1970, 626)).

(Armstrong notes Ir. plod ‘fleet’, but this is from O’Reilly’s (1817; 1864) Irish dictionary, where it has been adopted from Shaw’s (1780) Scottish Gaelic dictionary; HSS 1828 cites both Shaw and O’Reilly. Dinneen (1947) also lists plod ‘fleet’, but citing O’Reilly.)

The Scottish Gaelic verb forms plod and plodaich ‘to float’ also occur.

For plod, cf. MacDomhnuill (1741, 142), Shaw 1780 (plodam, plodaigham [(sic) ‘I float’], which are listed by O’Reilly (1817; 1864) as plódaim, plódaighim), Armstrong 1825 (‘to scald, float, cause to float’), HSS 1828 (‘to float, cause to float’), and M^cAlpine 1832 (‘to float, cause to float, half scald’). For plodaich, cf. Armstrong (‘to scald, float, cause to float’) and HSS (= plod). The senses ‘scald, half scald’ derive from Scots plot ‘to scald with boiling water’ (SND^˄).

In addition to SG plod in the sense ‘to float, cause to float’, Dwelly (1911) lists flod ‘to float’, while HSS (1828) and AFB^˄ list the verbal noun flodadh ‘floating’.

HSS (1828) derives flodadh from Scots flodder, but s.v. SG fleodrainn.

The verb form plod is derived by MacLennan (1925) from ON flota ‘to float, launch’; so also Stewart (2004, 412).

ON floti would formally yield SG *floide *[ˈfɫ̪ɔd̥ʲə] or, with apocope, *floid *[ˈfɫ̪ɔd̥ʲ] or similar, while an oblique ON flota would be expected to yield SG *floda *[fɫ̪ɔd̪̥ə] or flod [fɫ̪ɔd̪̥], which in turn could yield plod, with initial f- delenited to p- via back-formation in Gaelic. An Old Norse derivation for the noun SG flod, plod ‘fleet’, therefore, on the face of it cannot be ruled out.

For Shetland, Jakobsen (1928) lists floti [floti] ‘a small raft, ferry-boat’, which he derives from ON floti; cf. Scots flootchie ‘a flat-bottomed boat, esp. one with a square stern, a kind of skiff’, which SND^˄ links with Norw. dial. flote, flotta, ON floti, or perhaps Dut. (dim.) vlottje, ‘a raft’.

The Old Norse verb flota would similarly be expected to yield SG *floda *[fɫ̪ɔd̪̥ə] or flod [fɫ̪ɔd̪̥], which in turn could yield plod.

On the other hand, MScots flot, flote (with a short vowel) ‘a fleet; a float or raft’ (< MEng. flote 

Before lengthening to flōte.

(DOST^˄, s.v. ²flot)) would yield SG flod (plod) regularly, 

Cf. HSS (1828, s.v. flod: ‘fleet’, Hebrides), with a derivation from Scots flote.

while MScots flote (with a short vowel) ‘to float’ (< MEng. floten 

Before lengthening to flōten.

(DOST^˄, s.v. ²flote)) would yield the Scottish Gaelic verb flod (plod) ‘to float’ in the same way. The fact that the Scottish Gaelic forms only occur as monosyllables tends to favour a Scots derivation.

For SG flod in the phrase air flod ‘afloat’, s.v. flod.