Icelandic

A suckling lamb. ^def. syn.

A dilkur in a fold. ^def.

Noun

dilkur m ‎(genitive singular dilks, nominative plural dilkar)

1. a suckling lamb, a lamb at springtime ^fig. syn.
2. (archaic) the young of other livestock, such as a foal or calf, suckled by its mother
3. an enclosed part of a fold; one of the smaller folds surrounding the main sheepfold ^fig.

   Hver bær hefur sinn dilk.

   Each town has its own enclosure.

Declension

Derived terms

• dilkakjöt
• draga dilk á eftir sér, draga illan dilk á eftir sér (to be going to have unpleasant consequences, to be a harbinger of no good, to bring trouble on its train)
• draga í dilka (to categorize people by attributes such as race or opinions)

See also

• folald
• fjárrétt
• fráfærur
• hluti
• hólf
• kálfur
• kvíga
• lamb
• rétt
• töfludraga

Synonyms

• (suckling lamb): ^def. fig. dilklamb

Usage notes

• In the old agricultural society, lambs were færð frá ‎(“separated from”) the mother soon after the springbearings in June and driven to the mountains while the ewes were kept and milked at home over summer (this time was called fráfærur and separated lambs were called fráfærulömb or fráfærnalömb). Younglings would occasionally follow their mothers throughout the summer and suckle the milk; the lamb would then be called dilkur and the ewe dilksuga ‎(“suckled by a dilkur”)—folaldssuga ‎(“suckled by a foal”) would be used if the same happened to a foal. When the meat of sheep and lamb became a commodity farmers stopped separating the lambs from the ewes and let them suckle their mothers throughout the summer, making them heftier than before come fall.^[1]

References

1. 1 2 http://www.arnastofnun.is/page/ordpistlar_dilkur Orðapistill] — dilkur

• “dilkr” in: Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon — An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
• “dilkur” in: Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon — Íslensk orðsifjabók, 1st edition, 2nd printing (1989). Reykjavík, Orðabók Háskólans.