introduction are many words, which it seems as if the language
could never have done without. ‘Désintéressement’, ‘exactitude’,
‘sagacité’, ‘bravoure’, were not introduced till late in the
seventeenth century. ‘Renaissance’, ‘emportement’, ‘sçavoir-faire’,
‘indélébile’, ‘désagrément’, were all recent in 1675 (Bouhours);
‘indévot’, ‘intolérance’, ‘impardonnable’, ‘irréligieux’, were
struggling into allowance at the end of the seventeenth century,
and were not established till the beginning of the eighteenth.
‘Insidieux’ was invented by Malherbe; ‘frivolité’ does not appear
in the earlier editions of the _Dictionary of the Academy_; the
Abbé de St. Pierre was the first to employ ‘bienfaisance’, the
elder Balzac ‘féliciter’, Sarrasin ‘burlesque’. Mad. de Sevigné
exclaims against her daughter for employing ‘effervescence’ in a
letter (comment dites-vous cela, ma fille? Voilà un mot dont je
n’avais jamais ouï parler). ‘Demagogue’ was first hazarded by
Bossuet, and was counted so bold a novelty that it was long before
any ventured to follow him in its use. Somewhat earlier Montaigne
had introduced ‘diversion’ and ‘enfantillage’, though not without
being rebuked by cotemporaries on the score of the last.
Desfontaines was the first who employed ‘suicide’; Caron gave to
the language ‘avant-propos’, Ronsard ‘avidité’, Joachim Dubellay
‘patrie’, Denis Sauvage ‘jurisconsulte’, Menage ‘gracieux’ (at
least so Voltaire affirms) and ‘prosateur’, Desportes ‘pudeur’,
Chapelain ‘urbanité’, and Etienne first brought in, apologizing at
the same time for the boldness of it, ‘analogie’ (si les oreilles
françoises peuvent porter ce mot). ‘Préliber’ (prælibare) is a word
of our own day; and it was Charles Nodier who, if he did not coin,
yet revived the obsolete ‘simplesse’.--See Génin, _Variations du
Langage Français_, pp. 308-19.
{50} [Resuscitated in vain by Charles Lamb.]
{51} J. Grimm (_Wörterbuch_, p. xxvi.): Fällt von ungefähr ein fremdes
wort in den brunnen einer sprache, so wird es so lange darin
umgetrieben, bis es ihre farbe annimmt, und seiner fremden art zum
trotze wie ein heimisches aussieht.
{52} Have we here an explanation of the ‘battalia’ of Jeremy Taylor and
others? Did they, without reflecting on the matter, regard
‘battalion’ as a word with a Greek neuter termination? It is
difficult to think they should have done so; yet more difficult to
suggest any other explanation. [‘Battalia’ was sometimes mistaken
as a plural, which indeed it was originally, the word being derived
through the Italian _battaglia_, from low Latin _battalia_, which
(like _biblia_, _gaudia_, etc.) was afterwards regarded as a
feminine singular (Skeat, _Principles_, ii, 230). But Shakespeare
used it as a singular, “Our _battalia_ trebles that account”
(_Rich. III_, v. 3, 11); and so Sir T. Browne, “The Roman
_battalia_ was ordered after this manner” (_Garden of Cyrus_, 1658,
p. 113).]
{53} “And old heroës, which their world did daunt”.
_Sonnet on Scanderbeg._
{54} [By J. H(ealey), 1610, who has “centones ... of diuerse colours”,
p. 605.]
{55} [The identity of these two words, notwithstanding the analogy of
_corona_ and _crown_, is denied by Skeat, Kluge and Lutz.]
{56} Skinner (_Etymologicon_, 1671) protests against the word
altogether, as purely French, and having no right to be considered
English at all.
{57} It is curious how effectually the nationality of a word may by
these slight alterations in spelling be disguised. I have met an
excellent French and English scholar, to whom it was quite a
surprise to learn that ‘redingote’ was ‘riding-coat’.
{58} [Compare French _marsouin_ (=German _meer-schwein_), “sea-pig”, the
dolphin; Breton _mor-houc’h_; Irish _mucc mara_, “pig of the sea”,
the dolphin (W. Stokes, _Irish Glossaries_, p. 118); French _truye
de mer_ (Cotgrave); old English _brun-swyne_ (_Prompt. Parv._),
“brown-pig”, the dolphin or seal.]
{59} He is not indeed perfectly accurate in this statement, for the
Greeks spoke of ἐν κύκλῳ παιδεία and ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, but had no
such composite word as ἐγκυκλοπαδεία. We gather however from these
expressions, as from Lord Bacon’s using the term ‘circle-learning’
(=‘orbis doctrinæ’, Quintilian), that ‘encyclopædia’ did not exist
in their time. [But ‘encyclopedia’ occurs in Elyot, _Governour_,
1531, vol. i, p. 118 (ed. Croft); ‘encyclopædie’ in J. Sylvester,
_Workes_, 1621, p. 660.]
{60} See the passages quoted in my paper, _On some Deficiencies in our
English Dictionaries_, p. 38.
{61} [This prediction has been verified. ‘Ethos’ is used by Sir F.
Palgrave, 1851, and in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’, 1875. N.E.D.]
{62} We may see the same progress in Greek words which were being
incorporated in the Latin. Thus Cicero writes ἀντίποδες (_Acad._
ii, 39, 123), but Seneca (_Ep._ 122), ‘antipodes’; that is, the
word for Cicero was still Greek, while in the period that elapsed
between him and Seneca, it had become Latin: so too Cicero wrote
εἴδωλον, the Younger Pliny ‘idolon’, and Tertullian ‘idolum’.
{63} [This rash prophecy has not been fulfilled. English speakers are
still no more inclined to say ‘préstige’ than ‘pólice’.]
{64} See in Coleridge’s _Table Talk_, p. 3, the amusing story of John
Kemble’s stately correction of the Prince of Wales for adhering to
the earlier pronunciation, ‘obl_ee_ge,’--“It will become your royal
mouth better to say obl_i_ge.”
{65} “In this great _académy_ of mankind”.
Butler, _To the Memory of Du Val_.
{66} “‘Twixt that and reason what a nice _barrier_”.
{67} [A fairly complete collection of these and similar semi-naturalized
foreign words will be found in _The Stanford Dictionary of
Anglicized Words_, edited by Dr. C. A. M. Fennell, 1892.]
{68} [This is quite wrong. Mr. Fitzedward Hall shows that ‘inimical’ was
used by Gaule in 1652, as well as by Richardson in 1758 (_Modern
English_, p. 287). The N.E.D. quotes an instance of it from Udall
in 1643.]
{69} [The word had been already naturalized by H. More, 1647, Cudworth,
1678, Tucker 1765, and Carlyle, 1831.--N.E.D.]
{70} [The earliest citation for ‘abnormal’ in the N.E.D. is dated 1835.
The older word was ‘abnormous’. Curious to say it is unrelated to
‘normal’ to which it has been assimilated, being merely an
alteration of ‘anomal-ous’.]
{71} [Fuller says of ‘plunder’, “we first heard thereof in the Swedish
wars”, and that it came into England about 1642 (_Church History_,
bk. xi, sec. 4, par. 33). It certainly occurs under that date in
_Memoirs of the Verney Family_, “It is in danger of _plonderin_”
(vol. i, p. 71, also p. 151). It also occurs in a document dated
1643, “We must _plunder_ none but Roundheads” (_Camden Soc.
Miscellany_, iii, 31). Drummond (died 1649) has “Go fight and
_plunder_” (_Poems_, ed. Turnbull, p. 330). It appears in a
quotation from _The Bellman of London_ (no reference) given in
Timbs, _London and Westminster_, vol. i, p. 254.]
{72} [It is rather from the old Dutch _trecker_, a ‘puller’. Very few
English words come to us from German.]
{73} [So Skeat, _Etym. Dict._ But the Germans themselves take their
_schwindler_ (in the sense of cheat) to have been adopted from the
English ‘swindler’. Dr. Dunger asserts that it was introduced into
their language by Lichtenberg in his explanation of Hogarth’s
engravings, 1794-99 (_Englanderei in der Deutschen Sprache_, 1899,
p. 7).]
{74} _Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, 1650, p. 217.
{75} [This word introduced as a ‘pure neologism’ by D’Israeli
(_Curiosities of Literature_, 1839, 11th ed. p. 384) as a companion
to ‘mother-tongue’, had been already used by Sir W. Temple in 1672
(Hall, _Mod. English_, p. 44). Nay, even by Tyndale, see T. L. K.
Oliphant, _The New English_, i, 439.]
{76} [‘Folk-lore’ was introduced by Mr. W. J. Thoms, editor of _Notes
and Queries_, in 1846. Still later came ‘Folk-etymology’, the
earliest use of which in N.E.D. is given as 1883, but the editor’s
work bearing that title appeared in 1882.]
{77} _Holy State_, b. 2, c. 6. There was a time when the Latin
promised to display, if not an equal, yet not a very inferior,
freedom in this forming of new words by the happy marriage of
old. But in this, as in so many respects, it seemed possessed at
the period of its highest culture with a timidity, which caused
it voluntarily to abdicate many of its own powers. Where do we
find in the Augustan period of the language so grand a pair of
epithets as these, occurring as they do in a single line of
Catullus: Ubi cerva _silvicultrix_, ubi aper _nemorivagus_? or
again, as his ‘fluentisonus’? Virgil’s vitisator (_Æn._ 7, 179)
is not his own, but derived from one of the earlier poets. Nay,
the language did not even retain those compound epithets which it
once had formed, but was content to let numbers of them drop:
‘parcipromus’; ‘turpilucricupidus’, and many more, do not extend
beyond Plautus. On this matter Quintilian observes (i. 5, 70):
Res tota magis Græcos decet, nobis minus succedit; nec id fieri
naturâ puto, sed alienis favemus; ideoque cum κυρταύχενα mirati
sumus, _incurvicervicum_ vix a risu defendimus. Elsewhere he
complains, though not with reference to compound epithets, of the
little _generative_ power which existed in the Latin language,
that its continual losses were compensated by no equivalent gains
(viii. 6, 32): Deinde, tanquum consummata sint omnia, nihil
generare audemus ipsi, quum multa quotidie ab antiquis ficta
moriantur. Notwithstanding this complaint, it must be owned that
the silver age of the language, which sought to recover, and did
recover to some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier
times, reasserted among other powers that of combining words with
a certain measure of success.
{78} [For Shakespearian compounds see Abbott’s _Shakespearian Grammar_,
pp. 317-20.]
{79} [Writing in the year 1780 Bentham says: “The word it must be
acknowledged is a new one”.]
{80} _Collection of Scarce Tracts_, edited by Sir W. Scott, vol. vii, p.
91.
{81} [Hardly a novelty, as the word occurs in J. Gaule, Πῦς-μαντια,
1652, p. 30. See F. Hall, _Mod. English_, p. 131.]
{82} [First used apparently by Grote, 1847, and Mrs. Gaskell, 1857,
N.E.D.]
{83} See _Letters of Horace Walpole and Mann_, vol. ii. p. 396, quoted
in _Notes and Queries_, No. 225; and another proof of the novelty
of the word in Pegge’s _Anecdotes of the English Language_, 1814,
p. 38.
{84} Postscript to his _Translation of the Æneid_.
{85} Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere.
_De A. P._ 46-72; cf. _Ep._ 2, 2, 115.
{86} _Etymologicon vocum omnium antiquarum quæ usque a Wilhelmo Victore
invaluerunt, et jam ante parentum ætatem in usu esse desierunt._
{87} [As a matter of fact the N.E.D. fails to give any quotation for
this word in the period named.]
{88} [The verb ‘to advocate’ had long before been employed by Nash,
1598, Sanderson, 1624, and Heylin, 1657 (F. Hall, _Mod. English_,
p. 285).]
{89} In like manner La Bruyère, in his _Caractères_, c. 14, laments the
extinction of a large number of French words which he names. At
least half of these have now free course in the language, as
‘valeureux’, ‘haineux’, ‘peineux’, ‘fructueux’, ‘mensonger’,
‘coutumier’, ‘vantard’, ‘courtois’, ‘jovial’, ‘fétoyer’,
‘larmoyer’, ‘verdoyer’. Two or three of these may be rarely used,
but every one would be found in a dictionary of the living
language.
{90} _Preface to Juvenal._
{91} _Preface to Troilus and Cressida._ In justice to Dryden, and lest
it should be said that he had spoken poetic blasphemy, it ought not
to be forgotten that ‘pestered’ had not in his time at all so
offensive a sense as it would have now. It meant no more than
inconveniently crowded; thus Milton: “Confined and _pestered_ in
this pinfold here”.
{92} Thus in North’s _Plutarch_, p. 499: “After the fire was quenched,
they found in _niggots_ of gold and silver mingled together, about
a thousand talents”; and again, p. 323: “There was brought a
marvellous great mass of treasure in _niggots_ of gold”. The word
has not found its way into our dictionaries or glossaries.
{93} [‘Niggot’ rather stands for ‘ningot’, due to a coalescence of the
article in ‘an ingot’ (as if ‘a ningot’); just as, according to
some, in French _l’ingot_ became _lingot_.]
{94} [Such collections were essayed in J. C. Hare’s _Two Essays in
English Philology_, 1873, “_Words derived from Names of Persons_”,
and in R. S. Charnock’s _Verba Nominalia_, pp. 326.]
{95} [In a strangely similar way the stone-worshipper in the Malay
Peninsula gives to his sacred boulder the title of Mohammed (Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_, 3rd ed. ii. 254).]
{96} [But Wolsey’s jester was most probably so called from his wearing a
varicoloured or patchwork coat; compare the Shakespearian use of
‘motley’. Similarly the _maquereaux_ of the old French comedy were
clothed in a mottled dress like our harlequin, just as the Latin
_maccus_ or mime wore a _centunculus_ or patchwork coat, his name
being perhaps connected with _macus_ (in _macula_), a spot (Gozzi,
_Memoirs_, i, 38). In stage slang the harlequin was called
_patchy_, as his Latin counterpart was _centunculus_.]
{97} [An error. Prof. Skeat shows that ‘tram’ was an old word in
Scottish and Northern English (_Etym. Dict._, 655 and 831).]
{98} Several of these we have in common with the French. Of their own
they have ‘sardanapalisme’, any piece of profuse luxury, from
Sardanapalus; while for ‘lambiner’, to dally or loiter over a task,
they are indebted to Denis Lambin, a worthy Greek scholar of the
sixteenth century, whom his adversaries accused of sluggish
movement and wearisome diffuseness in style. Every reader of
Pascal’s _Provincial Letters_ will remember Escobar, the great
casuist among the Jesuits, whose convenient subterfuges for the
relaxation of the moral law have there been made famous. To the
notoriety which he thus acquired he owes his introduction into the
French language; where ‘escobarder’ is used in the sense of to
equivocate, and ‘escobarderie’ of subterfuge or equivocation. The
name of an unpopular minister of finance, M. de Silhouette,
unpopular because he sought to cut down unnecessary expenses in the
state, was applied to whatever was cheap, and, as was implied,
unduly economical; it has survived in the black outline portrait
which is now called a ‘silhouette’. (Sismondi, _Histoire des
Français_, tom. xix, pp. 94, 95.) In the ‘mansarde’ roof we have
the name of Mansart, the architect who introduced it. I need hardly
add ‘guillotine’.
{99} See Col. Mure, _Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_, vol. i,
p. 350.
{100} See Génin, _Des Variations du Langage Français_, p. 12.
{101} [Dr. Murray in the N.E.D. calls these by the convenient term
‘nonce-words’.]
{102} _Persa_, iv. 6, 20-23. At the same time these words may be earnest
enough; such was the ἐλαχιστότερος of St. Paul (Ephes. iii, 8);
just as in the Middle Ages some did not account it sufficient to
call themselves “fratres minores, minimi, postremi”, but coined
‘postremissimi’ to express the depth of their “voluntary
humility”.
{103} It is curious that a correspondent of Skinner (_Etymologicon_,
1671), although quite ignorant of this story, and indeed wholly
astray in his application, had suggested that ‘chouse’ might be
thus connected with the Turkish ‘chiaus’. I believe Gifford, in
his edition of Ben Jonson, was the first to clear up the matter. A
passage in _The Alchemist_ (Act i. Sc. 1) will have put him on the
right track. [But Dr. Murray notes that Gifford’s story, as given
above, has not hitherto been substantiated from any independent
source, and is so far open to doubt.]
{104} [These are quite distinct words, though perhaps distantly
related.]
{105} If there were any doubt about this matter, which indeed there is
not, a reference to Latimer’s famous _Sermon on Cards_ would
abundantly remove it, where ‘triumph’ and ‘trump’ are
interchangeably used.
{106} [Dr. Murray does not regard these words as ultimately identical.]
{107} [‘Rant’ (old Dutch _ranten_) has no connection with ‘rend’
(Anglo-Saxon _hrendan_) (Skeat).]
{108} On these words see a learned discussion in _English Retraced_,
Cambridge, 1862.
{109} [These are quite unconnected (Skeat).]
{110} [Neither are these words to be confused with one another.]
{111} The appropriating of ‘Franc_e_s’ to women and ‘Franc_i_s’ to men
is quite of modern introduction; it was formerly nearly as often
Sir Franc_e_s Drake as Sir Franc_i_s, while Fuller (_Holy State_,
b. iv, c. 14) speaks of Franc_i_s Brandon, eldest _daughter_ of
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and see Ben Jonson’s _New Inn_,
Act. ii, Sc. 1.
{112} [Not connected.]
{113} [‘Sad’ akin to ‘sated’ bears no relationship to ‘set’; neither
does ‘medley’ to ‘motley’.]
{114} [On the connection of these words see my _Folk and their
Word-Lore_, p. 110.]
{115} [Not connected, see Skeat.]
{116} Were there need of proving that these both lie in ‘beneficium’,
which there is not, for in Wiclif’s translation of the Bible the
distinction is still latent (1 Tim. vi. 2), one might adduce a
singularly characteristic little trait of Papal policy, which once
turned upon the double use of this word. Pope Adrian the Fourth
writing to the Emperor Frederic the First to complain of certain
conduct of his, reminded the Emperor that he had placed the
imperial crown upon his head, and would willingly have conferred
even greater ‘beneficia’ upon him than this. Had the word been
allowed to pass, it would no doubt have been afterwards appealed
to as an admission on the Emperor’s part, that he held the Empire
as a feud or fief (for ‘beneficium’ was then the technical word
for this, though the meaning had much narrowed since) from the
Pope--the very point in dispute between them. The word was
indignantly repelled by the Emperor and the whole German nation,
whereupon the Pope appealed to the etymology, that ‘beneficium’
was but ‘bonum factum’, and protested that he meant no more than
to remind the Emperor of the ‘benefits’ which he had done him, and
which he would have willingly multiplied still more. [‘Benefice’
from Latin _beneficium_, and ‘benefit’ from Latin _bene-factum_,
are here confused.]
{117} [‘Hoard’ (Anglo-Saxon _hord_) cannot be equated with ‘horde’ (from
Persian _órdú_).]
{118} [These words have been differentiated in comparatively modern
times. ‘Ingenuity’ was once used for ‘ingenuousness’.]
{119} [The words are really unconnected, ‘to gamble’ being ‘to gamle’ or
‘game’, and ‘to gambol’ being akin to French _gambiller_, to fling
up the legs (_gambes_ or _jambes_) like a frisking lamb.]
{120} The same happens in other languages. Thus in Greek ‘ἀνάθεμα’ and
‘ἀνάθημα’ both signify that which is devoted, though in very
different senses, to the gods; ‘θάρσος’, boldness, and ‘θράσος’,
temerity, were no more at first than different spellings of the
same word; not otherwise is it with γρῖπος and γρῖφος, ἔθος and
ἦθος, βρύκω and βρύχω, while ὀβελὸς and ὀβολὸς, σορὸς and σωρὸς,
are probably the same words. So too in Latin ‘penna’ and ‘pinna’
differ only in form, and signify alike a ‘wing’; while yet ‘penna’
has come to be used for the wing of a bird, ‘pinna’ (its
diminutive ‘pinnaculum’, has given us ‘pinnacle’) for that of a
building. So is it with ‘Thrax’ a Thracian, and ‘Threx’ a
gladiator; with ‘codex’ and ‘caudex’; ‘forfex’ and ‘forceps’;
‘anticus’ and ‘antiquus’; ‘celeber’ and ‘creber’; ‘infacetus’ and
‘inficetus’; ‘providentia’, ‘prudentia’, and ‘provincia’;
‘columen’ and ‘culmen’; ‘coitus’ and ‘cœtus’; ‘ægrimonia’ and
‘ærumna’; ‘Lucina’ and ‘luna’; ‘navita’ and ‘nauta’; in German
with ‘rechtlich’ and ‘redlich’; ‘schlecht’ and ‘schlicht’;
‘ahnden’ and ‘ahnen’; ‘biegsam’ and ‘beugsam’; ‘fürsehung’ and
‘vorsehung’; ‘deich’ and ‘teich’; ‘trotz’ and ‘trutz’; ‘born’ and
‘brunn’; ‘athem’ and ‘odem’; in French with ‘harnois’ the armour,
or ‘harness’, of a soldier, ‘harnais’ of a horse; with ‘Zéphire’
and ‘zéphir’, and with many more.
{121} Coleridge, _Church and State_, p. 200.
{122} [One hardly expects to find this otiose Americanism (first used by
J. Adams in 1759) in the work of a verbal purist, when ‘longish’
or the old ‘longsome’ were at hand. No one, as yet, has ventured
on ‘strengthy’ or ‘breadthy’ for somewhat strong or broad.]
{123} [This prediction was correct. ‘Dissimilation’ is first found in
philological works published in the decade 1874-85. See N.E.D.]
{124} [Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine (from
_Confluentes_), reminds us that the word was so used.]
{125} A passage from Hacket’s _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part 2, p.
144, marks the first rise of this word, and the quarter from
whence it arose: “When they [the Presbyterians] saw that he was
not _selfish_ (it is a word of their own new mint), etc”. In
Whitlock’s _Zootomia_ (1654) there is another indication of it as
a novelty, p. 364: “If constancy may be tainted with this
_selfishness_ (to use our _new wordings_ of old and general
actings)”--It is he who in his striking essay, _The Grand
Schismatic, or Suist Anatomized_, puts forward his own words,
‘suist’, and ‘suicism’, in lieu of those which have ultimately
been adopted. ‘Suicism’, let me observe, had not in his time the
obvious objection of resembling another word nearly, and being
liable to be confused with it; for ‘suicide’ did not then exist in
the language, nor indeed till some twenty years later. The coming
up of ‘suicide’ is marked by this passage in Phillips’ _New World
of Words_, 1671, 3rd ed.: “Nor less to be exploded is the word
‘_suicide_’, which may as well seem to participate of _sus_ a sow,
as of the pronoun _sui_”. In the _Index_ to Jackson’s Works,
published two years later, it is still ‘_suicidium_’--“the horrid
_suicidium_ of the Jews at York”. ‘Suicide’ is apparently of much
later introduction into French. Génin (_Récréations Philol._ vol.
i, p. 194) places it about the year 1728, and makes the Abbé
Desfontaines its first sponsor. He is wrong, as the words just
quoted show, in supposing that we borrowed it from the French, or
that the word did not exist in English till the middle of last
century. The French sometimes complain that the fashion of suicide
was borrowed from England. It would seem at all events probable
that the word was so borrowed.