STRÆTI

n. street (ganga úti um stræti).

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n. [from the Lat. strāta; A. S. stræt; Engl. street; O. H. G. straza; Germ. strasse; Dan. stræde]:—a street in a town (braut, q. v., is a road). The word is no doubt borrowed from the Latin, for as the old Northmen and Teutons had no towns, they had no streets; it is therefore strange to find such a word in an old poem like Hðm. 13, (the passage is prob. corrupt); so also, einn dag var þat er Kormakr gékk um stræti, Korm. 228, referring to the middle of the 10th century; but as the Saga is of the 12th, the words may perhaps here too be taken as an anachronism; Ólafr konungr gékk einn dag úti á stræti, Fs. 115, referring to Níðarós of the year 996; since in the 11th, and esp. in the 12th and 13th centuries, the word becomes freq. in Sagas referring to Norway, but never to Icel., Fms. vi. 363, vii. 39, Blas. 40. In the old Norse market-towns of the 11th, 12th, and following centuries, the ‘street’ ran along the shore (bryggjur), with ‘scores’ or cross lanes (veitur or almenningar) leading up to the houses (garðar), N. G. L. ii. 240, 243; strætis-búð, a street-booth, opp. to garðs-búð, iii. 112; strætis-görð, ii. 244; strætis-kaup, i. 324; strætis-lopt, -stofa, D. N. (Fr.)

2. a kind of gangway on board of a ship, [cp. Fr. pont]; göra með bryggjum útan tvá vega slétt stræti, til ástigs hjá viðum, Sks. 400.

II. Streiti or Stræti, a local name, Landn., Þórst. Síðu H., is no doubt a different word, perh. Gaelic.