ÞVEIT

f., or þveiti, n. [the root is found in A. S. þwîtan, pret. þwât = to chop; North. E. thwaite; Chaucer to thwite; cp. also Dutch duit, whence Engl. doit, Germ. deut, Dan. döit = a bit]:—prop. a ‘cut-off piece,’ but occurs only in special usages:

1. a piece of land, paddock, parcel of land, it seems orig. to have been used of an outlying cottage with its paddock; þær jarðir allar, bú ok þveiti, all the estates, manor and ‘thwaite,’ where bú and þveiti are opp. to one another, D. N. ii. 81; séttungs þ., áttungs-þ., id.; öng-þveiti, a narrow lane, strait.

2. freq. in local names in Norway and Denmark, tvæt, Dan. tvæde (whence Dan. Tvæde as a pr. name); and in North. E. Orma-thwaite, Braith-thwaite, Lang-thwaite, and so on, names implying Danish colonisation: Þveit, Þveitar, f., Þveitin, n., Þveitini (qs. Þveit-vin), Þveitar-ruð, n., Þveitar-garðr, m., Þveitar-fjall, n., D. N. passim; in Icel. local names it never occurs, and is there quite an obsolete word.

II. a unit of weight; þveiti mjöls, Boldt; þveitis-leiga, a rent amounting to a þ.; þveitis-ból, a farm of the value or the rent of a þ.; tveggja þveitna (thus a gen. pl. as if from þveita) toll, þveitis toll, D. N. iii. 465; hálf þveit smœrs, Boldt 114.

III. [Dutch duit, etc.], a kind of small coin, a doit, a subdivision of an ounce (= a fraction, cut-off piece); in weregild the baugþak was counted thus, sex aurar ok þveiti átta ens fimta tigar, i. e. six ounces and forty-eight doits; hálf mörk ok þveiti tvau ens fjórða tegar, a half mark and thirty-two doits; þrír aurar ok þveiti tuttugu ok fjögur, three ounces and twenty-four doits; tveir aurar ok þveiti sextan, two ounces and sixteen doits, Grág. (Kb.) i. 193; ef maðr stelr minna enn þveiti þá skal heita hvinn, N. G. L. i. 253, cp. B. K. 8–11, 28, 29; þar eru þveiti tuttugu ok þrjú at höfuðbaugi, … átta þveiti, ok þriðjungr ens fimta þveitis, ok hálft fjórða þveiti ok þriðjungr ens þriðja þveitis ok hálft annat þveiti, Grág. (Kb.) i. 202.