karu
‘bear’ · runosong lemma · Estonian and Finnish noun
| English gloss | bear |
|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun |
| Language | Estonian and Finnish |
| Total occurrences | 5,705 |
| By corpus | SKVR 158, JR 181, KR 9 poems, ERAB 5,366 |
The counts in this table cover all attested spellings of this lemma, not only the headword form; all are word occurrences, except the KR figure in the By corpus row, which counts poems and is not part of the total.
Full dictionary entry · Search in the corpus · Geographic distribution
Attested wordforms
karu, karud, karul, karo, karule, kahr, karuke, karun, karukene, karust, karude, kahro, karult, karut, karuks, karulta, karuda, karus, kahõr, karulla, karustõ, karuksi, karusse, karulle, karuga, karuin, karuta, karua, karudel, karussa, karuilla, karuille, karod, karolt, karuas, karudega, karujah, karukane, karulda, karuli … and 18 more of 58 attested forms
In Estonian dictionaries
Definitions are shown in Estonian: the source dictionaries are Estonian-language works.
EKSS
karu · 11
- 1. suur kohmakas pruuni kuni musta pika karvaga kiskjaline imetaja (Ursus arctos), pruunkaru
- 2. esineb liitsõna järelosana mitmes muus loomanimetuses; näit
EMS
karu
- pruunkaru (Ursus arctos)
- lastemängudes ja pulmanaljades esinev tegelane, sageli maskeeritud inimene
- tungraud
Karu
- koeranimi
Idamurre
karu
Sources: EKSS — Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut (CC BY 4.0) · EMS — Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut · Idamurde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut
English words in the AI translations
How often the AI analysis used each English word when it translated the uses of this word. Forms of one English word are counted together, and one translation can contain several words, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
| English word | Uses | Share |
|---|---|---|
| bear (bears, bear's, bears') | 5,757 | 97.0% |
| little | 90 | 1.5% |
| harsh (harsh's) | 39 | 0.7% |
| barren (barren's) | 25 | 0.4% |
| rough | 22 | 0.4% |
| herd (herd's) | 14 | 0.2% |
| karu | 11 | 0.2% |
| two (two's) | 7 | 0.1% |
| karo | 6 | 0.1% |
| Uses counted | 5,933 |
Example verses
- karu kataja kaitsijaksi (SKVR I4 1357.) read in context
The juniper a harsh protector, - emonen karulla tiellä (SKVR II 419.) read in context
Dear mother on the harsh road. - kantaja karulle jäälle (SKVR II 420.) read in context
The bearer to the bear's icy waste, - ostasin karun hevon (SKVR II 440.) read in context
Bought a rugged horse, - karu oli murdnud musta ärja (AES, MT 3, 1 (1)) read in context
The bear had slain the black ox, - karu kallis sõiduruuna (AES, MT 3, 6 (16)) read in context
Bear the prized steed, - karu küüs oli katki (AES, MT 3, 18) read in context
The bear's claw was broken, - karu murdis musta ärja (AES, MT 3, 23) read in context
"A bear killed the black ox."
Companion words
Words that co-occur with this lemma inside the same verse line more often than chance predicts, ranked by log-likelihood (G²) over verse-level co-occurrence in SKVR, KR, JR and ERAB; only pairs seen at least 3 times.
| Word | Association (G²) | Co-occurrences |
|---|---|---|
| murdma | 2,123 | 309 |
| kus | 1,407 | 431 |
| kargama | 1,260 | 244 |
| kiskuma | 1,151 | 200 |
| trumm | 847 | 92 |
| härg | 796 | 231 |
| hunt | 671 | 133 |
| vana | 646 | 215 |
Song types
Song types of the poems attesting this lemma, as catalogued per poem in the source corpora (ERAB type names are in Estonian, SKVR names in Finnish; JR and KR poems carry no song-type record).
| Song type | Poems |
|---|---|
| Liiri-lõõri! | 447 |
| Liiri-lõõri | 192 |
| Liiri, lõõri | 144 |
| Hiire pulmad | 126 |
| Metsast mehele | 90 |
| Poisi ja neiu matus | 90 |
| Ants oli aus saunamees | 69 |
| Saunamees Ants | 64 |
Collection places
Where the poems attesting this lemma were collected; each count is the number of attesting poems recorded at that place.
| Place | Poems |
|---|---|
| Kuusalu | 123 |
| Karksi | 123 |
| Haljala | 109 |
| Halliste | 102 |
| Tarvastu | 93 |
| Paistu | 90 |
| Kolga-Jaani | 86 |
| Viljandi | 86 |
| Setumaa | 79 |
| Vigala | 64 |
Attestation over time
Poems attesting this lemma by decade of collection or publication; undated poems are not shown.
| Decade | Poems |
|---|---|
| 1800–1809 | 1 |
| 1820–1829 | 3 |
| 1830–1839 | 2 |
| 1840–1849 | 10 |
| 1860–1869 | 41 |
| 1870–1879 | 171 |
| 1880–1889 | 579 |
| 1890–1899 | 851 |
| 1900–1909 | 219 |
| 1910–1919 | 226 |
| 1920–1929 | 320 |
| 1930–1939 | 546 |
| 1940–1949 | 56 |
| 1950–1959 | 2 |
| 1960–1969 | 4 |
Collectors
The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.
| Collector | Poems |
|---|---|
| Karl Voldemar Rosenstrauch | 87 |
| Richard Viidalepp (Viidebaum) | 82 |
| Karl Viljak | 75 |
| Mihkel (Tori) Ostrov | 71 |
| Oskar Philipp Kallas | 50 |
Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 3,225)
- SKVR: SKVR I4 1357., SKVR II 419., SKVR II 420., SKVR II 440., SKVR II 743., SKVR II 768., SKVR II 881., SKVR III2 1842., SKVR III2 2068., SKVR III2 2119., SKVR III3 2976., SKVR III3 2985., SKVR III3 3122., SKVR IV2 2279., SKVR IV3 Vatja 4669., SKVR IV3 Vatja 4701., SKVR VII1 9., SKVR VII1 12., SKVR VII1 12 a., SKVR VII1 12 b., SKVR VII1 12 c., SKVR VII1 12 d., SKVR VII1 13., SKVR VII1 16., SKVR VII2 1095., SKVR VII2 1836., SKVR VII2 2093., SKVR VII2 2282., SKVR VII2 2385., SKVR VII2 2438., SKVR VII2 2451., SKVR VII2 2626#1., SKVR VII2 2695., SKVR VII2 2721., SKVR VII3 loitsut 251., SKVR VII3 loitsut 1018., SKVR VII3 loitsut 1075 γ., SKVR VII3 loitsut 1482., SKVR VII4 loitsut 2754., SKVR VIII 4078., SKVR VIII 4578., SKVR VIII 5073., SKVR IX3 1711., SKVR X1 1760 α.[[#*]], SKVR XI 811., SKVR XII2 6659., SKVR XII2 6660., SKVR XIII4 10999.
- JR: JR 01089, JR 01987, JR 04003, JR 04610, JR 04951, JR 05007, JR 05344, JR 05358, JR 06578, JR 07158, JR 07837, JR 07838
Related lemmas
- Finnish cognate: karhu
About this profile
The counts and examples on this page come from the lemmatized text of four Finnic runosong corpora: SKVR, JR, KR and ERAB. The table of English words comes from an AI analysis of the corpus; song types, collection places, collectors and dates follow each poem's own catalogue record.
The table of English words is counted from the translations kept in the AI analysis files, which hold only the most frequent translations of each word or spelling, so rare translations can be missing. Words that carry only grammar (such as the, to or didn’t) are left out, and so are English words used fewer than 5 times or in less than 0.1% of the uses counted. The analysis files can group two closely related words, which then show the same table.
Verses are found by the spellings listed above, so an occasional verse may show a different word spelled the same way.
Forms of other words are left out of the verses and counts.
In Finnish: karuin, karut, karuta, karussa, karus, karuksi, karusi, kahr
The total and per-corpus counts at the top of the page are the lexicon’s: the uses the lemmatizer gave to this word. The uses below are counted by spelling in the same corpora, so a spelling this page shares with another word’s page is counted on both pages, and the two figures can differ either way.
In Estonian:
Uses shown on this page: 5,083
Uses left out as another word: 0
Uses left out because the AI reading could not be matched to the verse: 0
In Finnish:
Uses shown on this page: 156
Uses left out as another word: 23
Uses left out because the AI reading could not be matched to the verse: 0