Juich! De upgrade van mijn OED is toegekomen! Nog alijd geen echte fysieke OED, maar ‘t is beter dan niets. Tenzij jullie allemaal Plantin OUP als lettertype staan hebben (schoon lettertype trouwens), zien jullie dit hieronder niet in al zijn glorie, maar de entry voor log begint bijvoorbeeld zo:
log, n.1
Forms: 4?6 logge, 7?8 logg, 6? log. [Late ME. logge; of obscure origin; cf. the nearly synonymous clog n., which appears about the same time.
Not from ON. lág felled tree (f. OTeut. *l%g-, ablaut-variant of *leg- “lie v.1), which could only have given *low in mod.Eng. The conjecture that the word is an adoption from a later stage of Scandinavian (mod.Norw. laag, Sw. dial. låga), due to the Norwegian timber-trade, is not without plausibility, but is open to strong objection on phonological grounds. It is most likely that clog and logge arose as attempts to express the notion of something massive by a word of appropriate sound. Cf. Du. log clumsy, heavy, dull; see also lug n. and v. In sense 6 the word has passed from Eng. into many other langs.: F. loch, Ger., Da. log, Sw. logg.]
1. a. A bulky mass of wood; now usually an unhewn portion of a felled tree, or a length cut off for use as firewood. in the log: in an unhewn condition.
1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xlv. 630 Þe frute þereof falleþ+but he be+itrailled wt logges [L. lignis] & yardes as it were a vine. 1481?90 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb. Club) 355 My Lord paied+[for] iij. lodes of belet, and iij. lodes of logges+xviij. s. 1490 Caxton Eneydos xlvi. 139 The hardy knyghtes+casted vpon theym grete logges wyth sharpe yron atte the ende. 1525 Churchw. Acc. Heybridge, Essex (Nicholls 1797) 173 Paide to Adrewe of Braxted, for a logge 6d. 1540?54 Croke Ps. (Percy Soc.) 44 If one of his hate, Byfore the logge or stone wold ley, His purpose shall cumme all to late. 1545 Rates Custom-ho. b, Dogion logges the hundreth peces vis. viiid. 1561 T. Norton Calvin’s Inst. i. 23b, I was somtime a fig tree log, a block that serued for nought. c1600 Day Begg. Bednall Gr. ii. ii. (1881) 38 Wol’t say I lye? thou hadst as good eat a load of logs. 1610 Shakes. Temp. iii. i. 17, I would the lightning had Burnt vp those Logs that you are enioynd to pile. a1700 Dryden Ovid’s Met. viii. Meleager 253 There lay a Log unlighted on the Hearth. 1800 Colquhoun Comm. Thames i. 27, 250 of the Timber Ships are laden with Logs. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. cvii, Bring in great logs and let them lie, To make a solid core of heat. 1857 Thoreau Maine W. (1894) 196 The largest pine belonging to his firm+was worth ninety dollars in the log. 1900 Blackw. Mag. July 53/2 The smouldering ends of logs+gave forth a tingling smoke which filled the hovel.
…en de context waarin het gebruikt wordt in web log komt uiteindelijk van betekenis 7.a:
7. a. Short for log–book. A journal into which the contents of the log-board or log-slate are daily transcribed, together with any other circumstance deserving notice.
1825 H. B. Gascoigne Nav. Fame 79 Then down he goes his daily Log to write. 1850 Scoresby Cheever’s Whaleman’s Adv. vi. (1859) 86 To fix the localities of whales’ resorts by the comparison of the logs of a vast number of whalers. 1883 Stevenson Treas. Isl. iv. xviii, The captain sat down to his log, and here is the beginning of the entry. 1875 R. F. Burton Gorilla L. (1876) II. 176 Had the writers lived, they might have worked up their unfinished logs into interesting and instructive matter.