Man-ly. Good-ly. Home-ly.
God-ly. Good-like, (provincial):
or they are used as adverbs, of which the following are a few samples:--
Wise-ly. Third-ly. Truly.
First-ly. Last-ly. Sick-ly, (adjective and adverb).
The word _man-ly_ means _like a man_, and we believe that all such words
were once written with the termination _lic_, or _like_, which means
_resemblance_, or, in some cases, _equality_. As a proof of this
position, we may observe, without quoting the authority of old printed
books, that we still use several words in both forms: thus we have
_death-like_, _death-ly_; _god-like_, _god-ly_; while in some instances
we have retained the original termination _like_, without shortening it
into _ly_, as in _war-like_. Custom has now assigned different meanings
to such words as _god-like_ and _god-ly_,--the former, a poetical kind
of word, being used to signify resemblance to a god in actions, and the
latter being applied to express the feeling of piety and devotion. In
our older language a _good-ly man_ signified _handsome personage_, and
in some parts of this island the original phrase of a _good-like man_
may be often heard in the mouths of the rustics. The word _home-ly_ is
now generally used in the sense of _common_, _ordinary_, as when we
speak of _homely fare_ or _homely food_; or it is applied to express our
opinion of a person’s face, when we wish to say that it is rather ugly,
without using so ugly a word. Milton explains this usage of the word in
his Comus:--
“It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence.”
The list of words in _ly_, which are used as adverbs, is rather
numerous; very few of the class, we believe, are used both as adjectives
and adverbs. We have, however, marked _sick-ly_ as one instance of this
double usage. Many of these adverbs in _ly_ are derived from secondary
forms, and from that class of words in _ing_ commonly called
participles; thus we have--
Play-ful-ly. Deceit-ful-ly.
Know-ing-ly. Will-ing-ly.
The mention of the words _play-ful-ly_, _deceit-ful-ly_, leads us to
speak of the termination _ful_ (German, _voll_).
Play-ful. Joy-ful. Care-ful.
Aw-ful. Cheer-ful. Wil-ful.
These words might perhaps be more properly called compound words,
because they are compounded or made up of two distinct words. _Play-ful_
is formed of _play_ and _full_: one of the _l_’s in the compound word
being now generally dropped in writing. It may be well to explain how
the _compound_ word _health-ful_ differs from the _derived_ word
_health-y_. The former is, as we have remarked, made up of two distinct
words, _health_ and _full_, both of which are still in common use; while
_health-y_ is, made up of the same word _health_ and a _termination y_,
or _suffix_, as it is sometimes called, which may once have been a real
word, but it is so no longer; and we can only form a kind of guess at
its meaning, by comparing a number of words in which it occurs one with
another, and by observing what kind of ideas these words are used to
convey. Thus the word _wil-ful_ appears to signify _full of will_; and
when we speak of a _wilful murder_, we mean the death of one man caused
by another with _full will_ and _intention_. This is quite intelligible;
but this word _wilful_ is often used very vaguely and in various senses
that we have tried to understand, but hitherto without success.
Words in _less_ (German, _los_).
Care-less. Penni-less. Boot-less.
Cheer-less. Tooth-less. Worth-less.
These words, also, ought perhaps to be classed under the head of
compounds, as the termination _less_ is a real word in familiar use.
_Care-less_, _cheer-less_, signify exactly the reverse of _care-ful_,
_cheer-ful_, being used to express the _absence_ or _want_ of the thing
signified by the noun prefixed. The word _boot-less_ means without
_prey_, _booty_, or _profit_; it has furnished occasion for one of
Shakspeare’s worst puns, if we can venture to say which is the worst of
the innumerable samples which that fertile brain produced. Glendower
(Henry IV. Part 1st, Act iii. I) is telling Hotspur of his valorous
exploits against Henry Bolingbroke, when he says--
⸻“Thrice from the banks of Wye,
And sandy-bottomed Severn, have I sent him
Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.
_Hotspur_. Home without boots and in foul weather too!
How ’scapes he agues, in the devil’s name?”
The German word _los_ is attached to many words like the English
termination _less_, and appears to have exactly the same signification,
as, for example, _schlaf-los_ means _sleep-less_, and _macht-los_
(_might-less_), _without power_ or _strength_. Indeed the two
terminations appear to be the same, both signifying to _loose_ or _take
away_: the German _los_ is often _prefixed_ to verbs, as well as put
after nouns.
In our list of nouns we omitted to mention those in _rick_ and _wick_,
which ought to have been classed with nouns in _dom_. Their number is
not large.