afi

a, m. [cp. Lat. avus, Ulf. avô = μάμμα, and aba = ανήρ, vir], grandfather: it is now frequent, but occurs very rarely in old writers, who almost always use móðurfaðir or föðurfaðir. Yet it occurs in the poem Rm. 16—afi ok amma—and Vþm. 29, where it = föðurfaðir. It is curious to observe that in the poem Skm.—whence it is again transferred into the Grógaldr—it is used in the sense of a boy or a son; cp. as an illustration of this use the Norse phrase—D. N. iv. 848—afi eptir afa = son after father, man after man in uninterrupted succession, in accord- ance to the Gothic aba; Edda 108, Fms. iv. 288, vi. 346, xi. 6. We also say lang-afi, great-grandfather, and langamma, great-grandmother.

COMPD: afasystir.