An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Haspe

by Friedrich Kluge

Haspe, Häspe, feminine, ‘hasp, clamp, hinge,’ from Middle High German haspe, hespe, feminine, ‘hinge of a door; windle’ (with the variant hispe, feminine, ‘clasp’), Old High German haspa, ‘a reel of yarn’; compare Old Icelandic hespa, feminine, ‘hank, skein of wool; bolt of a door’; English hasp, Middle English haspe, ‘bolt, wollen yarn,’ so too Anglo-Saxon hœsp, hœps, heps, feminine. The double sense ‘door bolt, door look, and hasp,’ seems Old Teutonic; as a technical term in weaving, this word, like Rocken, found its way into Romance (Italian aspo, Old French hasple); see also Kunkel. Whether the two meanings have been developed from one, or whether two distinct words have been combined, is uncertain, since we have no etymological data.