# Etymology of Norwegian/Danish "grønnskolling"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-norwegian-danish-gronnskolling/113614>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 12, 2002, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-norwegian-danish-gronnskolling/113614 "2002-06-12T09:45:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-norwegian-danish-gronnskolling/113614/1 "2002-06-12T09:45:14Z")

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The claim has been made to me that the first element of the Norwegian or Danish word **grønnskolling** (meaning an inexperienced person) is not the same as **grøn** or **grønn** (green, as in the color), but is from an Old Norse word **gron** meaning “bare” or “barren”. The idea is that a grønnskolling is a person with a bare face (too young to shave). All I could find at the library are translation dictionaries without etymologies and one etymological dictionary with no entry for this word. I’ve checked several Old Norse and Icelandic dictionaries for gron (or anything remotely similar) that might mean “bare”, but came up with nothing.

I am inclined to believe the word does derive from the color, because the words for green can be used to mean “inexperienced” in English and German as well as Norwegian. But a citation from a good Norwegian or Danish dictionary would be nice.

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**Author:** ![blinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@blinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinx)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2002, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-norwegian-danish-gronnskolling/113614/2 "2002-06-12T20:00:18Z")

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I browsed around abit for it and found the following at [http://www.hist.uib.no/kalkar/](http://www.hist.uib.no/kalkar/) (Dictionary on the danish language 1300-1700):  
“Grønskalding, no. grønskolding; persolla, liden person, grønskalding. Colding, Etymol. 916; grøn om hagen, en grønskalding”.

“Grøn om hagen”, meaning green around the chin, seems to support the idea about a person to young to shave, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any other references to grøn meaning “bare”.

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**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2002, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-norwegian-danish-gronnskolling/113614/3 "2002-06-13T12:30:31Z")

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I first thought that it could be related to the Swedish word **gröngöling** , but that does not seem to be the case.  
[url=“[http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/](http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/)”]SAOB[/burl (the Swedish answer to OED) does however list **grönskålling** which seems to be a close relative. They have no doubt as to the meaning of the first element being the colour of unripe fruit. Parallells are drawn to the English **greenhorn** and German **grünschnabel**.