For each of the following words find (a) the original meaning, (b) the
central meaning today. (Other words are given in the exercises at the end
of this chapter.)
Bias Supersede Sly
Aversion Capital Meerschaum
Extravagant Travel Alley
Concur Travail Fee
Attention Apprehend Superb
Magnanimity Lewd Adroit
Altruism Instigation Quite
Benevolence Complexion Urchin
Charity Bishop Thoroughfare
Unction Starve Naughty
Speed Cunning Moral
Success Decent Antic
Crafty Handsome Savage
Usury Solemn Uncouth
Costume Parlor Window
Presumption Bombastic Colleague
Petty Vixen Alderman
Queen Doctor Engage
<Prying Into a Word's Past>
To thread with minute fidelity the mazes of a word's former history is the
task of the linguistic scholar; our province is the practical and the
present-day. But words, like men, are largely what they are because of
what they have been; and to turn a gossip's eye upon their past is to
procure for ourselves, often, not only enlightenment but also
entertainment. This fact, though brought out in some part already,
deserves separate and fuller discussion.
In the first place, curiosity as to words' past experience enables us to
read with keener understanding the literature of preceding ages. Of course
we should not, even so, go farther back than about three centuries. To
read anything earlier than Shakespeare would require us to delve too
deeply into linguistic bygones. And to read Shakespeare himself requires
effort--but rewards it. Let us see how an insight into words will help us
to interpret the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4).
In line 2 of this passage appears the word _merely_. In Shakespeare's
time it frequently meant "altogether" or "that and nothing else." As here
used, it may be taken to mean this, or to have its modern meaning, or to
stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both;
there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the word _pard_
means leopard. In line 18 _saws_ means "sayings" (compare the phrase
"an old saw"); _modern_ means "moderate," "commonplace";
_instances_ means what we mean by it today, "examples,"
"illustrations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the
justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and
to trot out his trite illustrations on the slightest provocation.) The
word _pantaloon_ in line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of
Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and
possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral). _Pantaloon_
came therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians
and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is
preserved, substantially, in our term _pantaloons_. The first sense
led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for
"buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old
man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In
line 22 _hose_ means the covering for a man's body from his waist to
his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet
and the _lower_ part of the legs.) In line 27 _mere_ means
"absolute." In line 28 _sans_ means "without."
Of the words we have examined, only _sans_ is obsolete, though
_pard_, _saws_, and _pantaloon_ are perhaps not entirely
familiar. That is, only one word in the passage, so far as its outward
form goes, is completely alien to our knowledge. But how different the
matter stands when we consider meanings! The words are words of today, but
the meanings are the meanings of Shakespeare. We should be baffled and
misled as to the dramatist's thought if we had made no inquiries into the
vehicle therefor.
In the second place, to look beyond the present into the more remote
signification of words will put us on our guard against the reappearance
of submerged or half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the word
_tension_ may be used without conscious connection with the idea of
stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong
environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We associate
_ardor_ with strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this
conception of the word suffices. But _ardor_ is one of the children
of fire; its primary sense is "burning" (compare _arson_). Therefore
to pronounce the three vocables "overflowing with ardor" is to mix figures
of speech absurdly. We should fall into a similar mistake if we said
"brilliant fluency," and into a mistake of another kind (that of tautology
or repetition of an idea) if we said "heart-felt cordiality," for
_cordiality_ means "feelings of the heart." _Appreciate_ means
"set a (due) value on." We may perhaps say "really appreciate," but
scrupulous writers and speakers do not say "appreciate very much." A
_humor_ (compare humid) was once a "moisture"; then one of the four
moistures or liquids that entered into the human constitution and by the
proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's
outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause
of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter
and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of
moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should
not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried
meanings lie in the same grave for the very dead to rest peacefully
together.
Even apart from reading old literature and from having, when you use
words, no ghosts of their pristine selves rise up to damn you, you may
profit from a knowledge of how the meaning of a term has evolved. For
example, you will meet many tokens and reminders of the customs and
beliefs of our ancestors. Thus _coxcomb_ carries you back to the days
when every court was amused by a "fool" whose head was decked with a
cock's comb; _crestfallen_ takes you back to cockfighting; and
_lunatic_ ("moonstruck"), _disaster_ ("evil star"), and "thank
your lucky stars" plant you in the era of superstition when human fate was
governed by heavenly bodies.
Further, you will perceive the poetry of words. Thus to _wheedle is_
to wag the tail and to _patter_ is to hurry through one's prayers
(paternoster). What a picture of the frailty of men even in their holiness
flashes on us from that word _patter! Breakfast is_ the breaking of
the fast of the night. _Routine_ (the most humdrum of words) is
travel along a way already broken. _Goodby_ is an abridged form of
"God be with you." _Dilapidated_ is fallen stone from stone.
_Daisy_ is "the day's eye," _nasturtium_ (from its spicy smell)
"the nose-twister," _dandelion_ "the tooth of the lion." _A
lord_ is a bread-guard.
You will perceive, moreover, that many a dignified word once involved the
same idea as some unassuming or even semi-disreputable word or expression
involves now. Thus there is little or no difference in figure between
understanding a thing and getting on to it; between averting something
(turning it aside) and sidetracking it; between excluding (shutting out)
and closing the door to; between degrading (putting down a step) and
taking down a notch; between accumulating (heaping up) and making one's
pile; between taking umbrage (the shadow) and being thrown in the shade;
between ejaculating and throwing out a remark; between being on a tension
and being highstrung; between being vapid and having lost steam; between
insinuating (winding in) and worming in; between investigating and
tracking; between instigating (goading on or into) and prodding up;
between being incensed (compare _incendiary_) and burning with
indignation; between recanting (unsinging) and singing another tune;
between ruminating (chewing) and smoking in one's pipe. Nor is there much
difference in figure between sarcasm (a tearing of the flesh) and taking
the hide off; between sinister (left-handed) and backhanded; between
preposterous (rear end foremost) and cart before the horse; between salary
(salt-money, an allowance for soldiers) and pin-money; between pedigree
(crane's foot, from the appearance of genealogical diagrams) and crowsfeet
(about the eyes); between either precocious (early cooked), apricot (early
cooked), crude (raw), or recrudescence (raw again) and half-baked. To
ponder is literally to weigh; to apprehend an idea is to take hold of it;
to deviate is to go out of one's way; to congregate is to flock together;
to assail or insult a man is to jump on him; to be precipitate is to go
head foremost; to be recalcitrant is to kick.
Again, you will perceive that many words once had more literal or more
definitely concrete meanings than they have now. To corrode is to gnaw
along with others, to differ is to carry apart, to refuse is to pour back.
Polite is polished, absurd is very deaf, egregious is taken from the
common herd, capricious is leaping about like a goat, cross (disagreeable)
is shaped like a cross, wrong is wrung (or twisted). Crisscross is
Christ's cross, attention is stretching toward, expression is pressed out,
dexterity is right-handedness, circumstances are things standing around,
an innuendo is nodding, a parlor is a room to talk in, a nostril is that
which pierces the nose (thrill means pierce), vinegar is sharp wine, a
stirrup is a rope to mount by, a pastor is a shepherd, a marshal is a
caretaker of horses, a constable is a stable attendant, a companion is a
sharer of one's bread.
On the other hand, you will find that many words were once more general in
import than they have since become. _Fond_ originally meant foolish,
then foolishly devoted, then (becoming more general again) devoted.
_Nostrum_ meant our own, then a medicine not known by other
physicians, then a quack remedy. _Shamefast_ meant confirmed in
modesty (shame); then through a confusion of _fast_ with
_faced_, a betrayal through the countenance of self-consciousness or
guilt. _Counterfeit_ meant a copy or a picture, then an unlawful
duplication, especially of a coin. _Lust_ meant pleasure of any sort,
then inordinate sexual pleasure or desire. _Virtue_ (to trace only a
few of its varied activities) meant manliness, then the quality or
attribute peculiar to true manhood (with the Romans this was valor), then
any admirable quality, then female chastity. _Pen_ meant a feather,
then a quill to write with, then an instrument for writing used in the
same way as a quill. A _groom_ meant a man, then a stableman (in
_bridegroom_, however, it preserves the old signification).
_Heathen_ (heath-dweller), _pagan_ (peasant), and _demon_
(a divinity) had in themselves no iniquitous savor until early Christians
formed their opinion of the people inaccessible to them and the spirits
incompatible with the unity of the Godhead. Words betokening future
happenings or involving judgment tend to take a special cast from the
fears and anxieties men feel when their fortune is affected or their
destiny controlled by external forces. Thus _omen_ (a prophetic
utterance or sign) and _portent_ (a stretching forward, a foreseeing,
a foretelling) might originally be either benign or baleful; but nowadays,
especially in the adjectival forms _ominous_ and _portentous_,
they wear a menacing hue. Similarly _criticism_, _censure_, and
_doom_, all of them signifying at first mere judgment, have come--the
first in popular, the other two in universal, usage--to stand for adverse
judgment. The old sense of _doom_ is perpetuated, however, in
_Doomsday_, which means the day on which we are all to be, not
necessarily sent to hell, but judged.
You will furthermore perceive that the exaggerated affirmations people are
always indulging in have led to the weakening of many a word. _Fret_
meant eat; formerly to say that a man was fretting was to use a vigorous
comparison--to have the man devoured with care. _Mortify_ meant to
kill, then killed with embarrassment, then embarrassed. _Qualm_ meant
death, but our qualms of conscience have degenerated into mere twinges.
Oaths are shorn of their might by overuse; _confound_, once a
tremendous malinvocation, may now fall from the lips of respectable young
ladies, and _fie_, in its time not a whit less dire, would be
scarcely out of place in even a cloister. Words designating immediacy come
to have no more strength than soup-meat seven times boiled.
_Presently_ meant in the present, _soon_ and _by and by_
meant forthwith. How they have lost their fundamental meaning will be
intelligible to you if you have in ordering something been told that it
would be delivered "right away," or in calling for a girl have been told
that she would be down "in a minute."
You will detect in words of another class a deterioration, not in force,
but in character; they have fallen into contemptuous or sinister usage.
Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. _Cunning_
meant knowing, _artful_ meant well acquainted with one's art,
_crafty_ meant proficient in one's craft or calling, _wizard_
meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have
assumed that mental superiority must be yoked with moral dereliction or
diabolical aid. Words indicating the generality--indicating ordinary rank
or popular affiliations--have in many instances suffered the same decline.
_Trivial_ meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the
crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was
accordingly slight. _Lewd_ meant belonging to the laity; it came to
mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. _Common_ may be used
to signify ill-bred; _vulgar_ may be and frequently is used to
signify indecent. _Sabotage_, from a French term meaning wooden shoe,
has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's
work in order to injure one's employer. _Idiot_ (common soldier)
crystallizes the exasperated ill opinion of officers for privates.
(_Infantry_--an organization of military infants--has on the contrary
sloughed its reproach and now enshrines the dignity of lowliness.)
Somewhat akin to words of this type is _knave_, which first meant
boy, then servant, then rogue. Terms for agricultural classes seldom
remain flattering. Besides such epithets as _hayseed_ and
_clodhopper_, contemptuous in their very origin, _villain_ (farm
servant), _churl_ (farm laborer), and _boor_ (peasant) have all
gathered unto themselves opprobrium; _villain_ now involves a
scoundrelly spirit, _churl_ a contumelious manner, _boor_ a
bumptious ill-breeding; not one of these words is any longer confined in
its application to a particular social rank. Terms for womankind are soon
tainted. _Wench_ meant at first nothing worse than girl or daughter,
_quean_ than woman, _hussy_ than housewife; even _woman_ is
generally felt to be half-slighting. Terms affirming unacquaintance with
sin, or abstention from it, tend to be quickly reft of what praise they
are fraught with; none of us likes to be saluted as _innocent_,
_guileless_, or _unsophisticated_, and to be dubbed _silly_ no
longer makes us feel blessed. Besides these and similar classes of words,
there are innumerable individual terms that have sadly lost caste. An
_imp_ was erstwhile a scion; it then became a boy, and then a
mischievous spirit. A _noise_ might once be music; it has ceased to
enjoy such possibilities. To live near a piano that is constantly banged
is to know how _noise_ as a synonym for music was outlawed.
A backward glance over the history of words repays you in showing you the
words for what they are, and in having them live out their lives before
you. Do you know what an _umpire_ is? He is a non (or num) peer, a
not equal man, an odd man--one therefore who can decide disputes. Do you
know what a _nickname_ is? It is an eke (also) name, a title bestowed
upon one in addition to his proper designation. Do you know what a
_fellow_, etymologically speaking, is? He is a fee-layer, a partner,
a man who lays his fee (property) alongside yours. Do you know that
_matinée_, though awarded to the afternoon, meant primarily a morning
entertainment and has traveled so far from its original sense that we call
an actual before-noon performance a morning matinée? Do you know the past
of such words as _bedlam_, _rival_, _parson_,
_sandwich_, _pocket handkerchief?_ _Bedlam_, a corruption
of _Bethlehem_, was a hospital for the insane in London; it came to
be a general term for great confusion or discord. _Rivals_ were
formerly dwellers--that is, neighboring dwellers--on the bank of a stream;
disputes over water-rights gave the word its present meaning. A
_person_ or _parson_, for the two were the same, was a mask
(literally, that through which the sound came); then an actor representing
a character in a play; then a representative of any sort; then the
representative of the church in a parish. A _sandwich_ was a
stratification of bread and meat by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so loath
to leave the gaming table that he saved time by having food brought him in
this form. A _kerchief_ was originally a cover for the head, and
indeed sundry amiable, old-fashioned grandmothers still use it for this
purpose. Afterward people carried it in their hands and called it a
_handkerchief_; and when they transferred it to the pocket, they
called it a _pocket handkerchief_ or pocket hand head-cover. A
scrutiny of such words should convince you that the reading of the
dictionary, instead of being the dull occupation it is almost proverbially
reputed to be, may become an occupation truly fascinating. For clustered
about the words recorded in the dictionary are inexhaustible riches of
knowledge and of interest for those who have eyes to see.