WORDS WHICH HAVE CHANGED THEIR MEANING.
We have seen in the chapter on "slang" how people are continually
using old words in new ways, and how, through this, slang often
becomes good English and good English becomes slang. The same thing
has been going on all through the history of language. Other words
besides those used as slang have been constantly getting new uses.
Many English words to-day have quite different meanings from those
which they had in the Middle Ages; some even have exactly opposite
meanings to their original sense. Sometimes words keep both the old
meaning and the new.
In this matter the English language is very different from the German.
The English language has many words which the Germans have too, but
their meanings are different. The Germans have kept the original
meanings which these words had hundreds of years ago; but the
thousands of words which have come down to us from the English
language of a thousand years ago have nearly all changed their
meanings.
We have two of these old words which have now each two exactly
opposite meanings. The word _fast_ means sometimes "immovable," and
sometimes it means the exact opposite--"moving rapidly." We say a key
is "fast" in a lock when we cannot get it out, and we say a person
runs "fast" when we mean that he runs quickly. The first meaning of
steadiness is the original meaning; then the word came to be used to
mean "moving steadily." A person who ran on, keeping up a steady
movement, was said to run fast, and then it was easy to use the word
for rapidity as well as steadiness in motion or position. This is how
the word _fast_ came to have two opposite meanings.
Another word, _fine_, has the same sort of history. We speak of a
"fine needle" when we mean that it is thin, and a "fine baby" when we
mean that it is fat. The first meaning is nearer to the original,
which was "well finished off." Often a thing which had a great deal of
"fine" workmanship spent on it would be delicate and "fine" in the
first sense, and so the word came to have this meaning. On the other
hand, the thing finished off in this way would generally be beautiful.
People came to think of "fine" things as things to be admired, and as
they like their babies to be fat, a fat baby will generally be
considered a fine baby. It was in this kind of way that "fine" came to
have its second meaning of "large."
The common adjectives _glad_ and _sad_ had quite different meanings
in Old English from those they have now. In Old English glad meant
"shining," or "bright," but in a very short time it came to mean
"cheerful." Now it means something rather different from this, for
though we may speak of a "glad heart" or "glad spirit," such
expressions are chiefly used in poetry. Generally in ordinary speech
when we say that we are "glad" we mean that we are pleased about some
special thing, as "glad that you have come."
_Sad_ in Old English meant to have as much as one wanted of anything.
Then it came to mean "calm" and "serious," perhaps from the idea that
people who have all they want are in a mood to settle down and attend
to things seriously. Already in Shakespeare's writings we find the
word with its present meaning of "sorrowful." It has quite lost its
earlier meaning, but has several special new meanings besides the
general one of "sorrowful." A "sad tint," or colour, is one which is
dull. "Sad bread" in the north of England is "heavy" bread which has
not risen properly. Again, we describe as "sad" some people who are
not at all sorrowful. We say a person is a "sad" liar when we mean
that he is a hopeless liar.
The word _tide_, which we now apply to the regular rise and fall of
the sea, used to mean in Old English "time;" and it still keeps this
meaning in the words _Christmastide_, _Whitsuntide_, etc.
One common way in which words change is in going from a general to a
more special meaning. Thus in Old English the word _chest_ meant "box"
in general, but has come now to be used as the name of a special kind
of box only, and also as the name of a part of the body. The first
person who used the word in this sense must have thought of the
"chest" as a box containing the lungs and the heart.
_Glass_ is, of course, the name of the substance out of which we make
our windows and some of our drinking vessels, etc., and this was at
one time its only use; but we now use the name _glass_ for several
special articles--for example, a drinking-vessel, a telescope, a
barometer, a mirror (or "looking-glass"), and so on. _Copper_ is
another word the meaning of which has become specialized in this way
as time has gone on. From being merely the name of a metal it has come
to be used for a copper coin and for a large cauldron especially used
in laundry work. Another example of a rather different kind of this
"specialization" which changes the meaning of words is the word
_congregation_. _Congregation_ used to mean "any gathering together of
people in one place," and we still use the word _congregate_ in this
sense. Thus we might say "the people congregated in Trafalgar Square,"
but we should never think of speaking of a crowd listening to a
lecturer there as a "congregation." The word has now come to mean an
assembly for religious worship in a chapel or church.
Some words have changed their meaning in just the opposite way. From
having one special meaning they have come by degrees to have a much
more general sense. The word _bureau_, which came into English from
the French, meant at first merely a "desk" in both languages. It still
has this meaning in both languages, but a wider meaning as well. It
can now be used to describe an office (a place associated with the
idea of desks). Thus we have "employment bureau," and can get English
money for foreign at a "bureau de change." From this use of the word
we have the word _bureaucracy_, by which we describe a government
which is carried on by a great number of officials.
A better example of how a word containing one special idea can extend
its meaning is the word _bend_. This word originally meant to pull the
string of a bow in order to let fly an arrow. The expression "bend a
bow" was used, and as the result of pulling the string was to curve
the wooden part of the arrow, people came in time to think that
"bending the bow" was this making the wood to curve. From this came
our general use of "bend" to mean forcing a thing which is straight
into a curve or angle. We have, of course, also the metaphorical use
of the word, as when we speak of bending our will to another's.
Another word which has had a similar history is _carry_. When this
word was first borrowed from Old French it meant to move something
from place to place in a cart or other wheeled vehicle. The general
word for our modern _carry_ was _bear_, which we still use, but
chiefly in poetry. In time _carry_ came to have its modern general
sense of lifting a thing from one place and removing it to another. A
well-known writer on the history of the English language has suggested
that this came about first through people using the word in this sense
half in fun, just as the word _cart_ is now sometimes used. A person
may say (a little vulgarly), "Do you expect me to cart all these
things to another room?" instead of using the ordinary word carry. If
history were to repeat itself in this case, _cart_ might in time
become the generally used word, and _carry_ in its turn be relegated
to the realm of poetry.
Words often come to have several meanings through being used to
describe things which are connected in some way with the things for
which they were originally used. The word _house_ originally had one
meaning, which it still keeps, but to which several others have been
added. It was a building merely, but came in time to be used to mean
the building and the people living in it. Thus we say one person
"disturbs the whole house." From this sense it got the meaning of a
royal family, and we speak of the House of York, Lancaster, Tudor, or
Stuart. We also use the word in a large sense when we speak of the
"House of Lords" and the "House of Commons," by which we hardly ever
mean the actual buildings known generally as the "Houses of
Parliament," but the members of the two Houses. The word _world_ has
had almost the opposite history to the word _house_. World originally
applied only to persons and not to any place. It meant a "generation
of men," and then came to mean men and the earth they live on, and
then the earth itself; until it has a quite general sense, as when we
speak of "other worlds than ours."
Many words which are used at present to describe bad or disagreeable
things were used quite differently originally. The word _villain_ is,
perhaps, the most expressive we can use to show our opinion of the
depths of a person's wickedness. Yet in the Middle Ages a villain, or
"villein," was merely a serf or labourer bound to work on the land of
a particular lord. The word in Saxon times would have been _churl_. As
time went on both these words became terms of contempt. The lords in
the Middle Ages were certainly often more wicked than the serfs, as we
see in the stories of the days of Robin Hood; but by degrees the
people of the higher classes began to use the word _villain_ more and
more contemptuously. Many of them imagined that only people of their
own class were capable of high thoughts and noble conduct. Gradually
"villainy" came to mean all that was low and vulgar, and by degrees it
came to have the meaning it has now of "sheer wickedness." At the end
of the Middle Ages there were practically no longer any serfs in
England; but the word _villain_ has remained in this new sense, and
gives us a complete story of the misunderstanding and dislike which
must have existed between "noble" and "simple" to cause such a change
in the meaning of the word.
The word _churl_ has a somewhat similar history. We say now that a
sulky, ungracious person is a "mere churl," or behaves in a "churlish"
manner, never thinking of the original meaning of the word. Here,
again, is a little story of injustice. The present use of the word
comes from the supposition that only the mere labourer could behave in
a sulky or bad-tempered way.
_Knave_ is another of those words which originally described persons
of poor condition and have now come to mean a wicked or deceitful
person. A knave, as we now understand the word, means a person who
cheats in a particularly mean way, but formerly the word meant merely
"boy." It then came to mean "servant," just as the word _garçon_
("boy") is used for all waiters in French restaurants. Another word
which now means, as a rule, some one unutterably wicked, is _wretch_,
though it is also used rather contemptuously to describe some one who
is not wicked but unutterably miserable. Yet in Old English this word
merely meant an "exile." An exile was a person to be pitied, and also
sometimes a person who had done something wrong, and we get both these
ideas in the modern uses of the word. The word _blackguard_, which now
means a "scoundrel," was also once a word for "scullion;" but it does
not go back as far as "knave" and "villain," being found chiefly in
writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Another word in which the "villeins" and "knaves" and "churls" seem to
have their revenge on the "upper classes" is _surly_. This word used
to be spelt _sirly_, and meant behaving as a "sire," or gentleman,
behaves. Originally this meant "haughty" or "arrogant," but by degrees
came to have the idea of sulkiness and ungraciousness, much like
_churlish_.
Several adjectives which are now used as terms of blame were not only
harmless descriptions originally, but were actually terms of praise.
No one likes to be called "cunning," "sly," or "crafty" to-day; but
these were all complimentary adjectives once. A _cunning_ man was one
who knew his work well, a _sly_ person was wise and skilful, and a
_crafty_ person was one who could work well at his trade or "craft."
Two words which we use to-day with a better sense than any of these,
and yet which have a slightly uncomplimentary sense, are _knowing_ and
_artful_. It is surely good to "know" things, and to be full of art;
but both words have already an idea of slyness, and may in time come
to have quite as unpleasant a meaning as these three which have the
same literal meaning.
_Fellow_, a word which has now nearly always a slightly contemptuous
sense, had originally the quite good sense of _partner_. It came from
an Old English word which meant the man who marked out his land next
to yours. The word still has this good sense in _fellowship_,
_fellow-feeling_, etc., and as used to describe a "fellow" of a
college or society. But the more general use is as a less respectful
word for man. One man may say of another that he is a "nice fellow"
without any disrespect; but the word has no dignity, and people, even
though they use it of an equal, would not think of using it to
describe a superior, and the more general use is that of blame or
contempt, as in the expressions, "a disagreeable fellow" or "a stupid
fellow." The word _bully_ was at one time a word which showed
affection, and meant even "lover." In English now, of course, a bully
is a person, especially a boy, who tyrannizes over people weaker than
himself; but the Americans still use the word in a good sense when
they say "bully for you," meaning "bravo."
We have seen many words whose meanings have become less dignified than
their original meaning; but sometimes the opposite happens. Every one
now speaks with respect of a "pioneer," whether we mean by that people
who are the first to venture into strange lands, or, in a more
figurative sense, people who make some new discovery in science or
introduce some new way of thinking or acting. Yet "pioneers" were
originally merely the soldiers who did the hard work of clearing the
way for an advancing army. They were looked upon as belonging to a
lower class than the ordinary soldiers. But this new and at first
figurative use of the word, applied first to geographical and then to
scientific and moral explorers, has given the word a new dignity.
A group of words which had originally very humble meanings, and have
been elevated in an even more accidental way, are the names of the
officials of royal courts. The word _steward_ originally meant, as it
still means, a person who manages property for some one else. The
steward on a ship is a servant; but the steward of the king's
household was no mean person, and was dignified with the title of the
"Lord High Steward of England." The royal house of Stuart took its
name from the fact that the heads of the family were in earlier times
hereditary stewards of the Scottish kings. So _marshal_, the name of
another high official at court, means "horse boy;" _seneschal_, "old
servant;" _constable_, "an attendant to horses' stalls," and so on.
Some of these words have kept both a dignified and a commoner meaning.
_Constable_, besides being the name of a court official, is also
another term for "policeman."
The word _silly_ meant in Old English "blessed" or "happy," but of
course has wandered far from this meaning. On the other hand, several
words which once meant "foolish" have now quite different meanings.
_Giddy_ and _dizzy_ both had this sense in Old English, and so had
the word _nice_. But later the French word _fol_, from which we get
_foolish_, was introduced into English, and these words soon ceased to
be used in this sense. Before this the two words _dizzy_ and _giddy_
had occasionally been used in the sense in which they are used now, to
describe the condition of a person whose head "swims;" this now became
their general meaning, though _giddy_ has gone back again to something
of its old meaning in its later use to describe a person's conduct. A
_giddy_ person is another description for one of frivolous character.
The word _nice_ has had a rather more varied history. It had its
original meaning of "foolish" from the literal meaning of the Latin
word _nescius_, "ignorant," from which it was derived. Gradually it
came to mean "foolishly particular about small things;" and we still
have a similar use of the word, as when we say a person has a "nice
taste in wines," or is a "nice observer," or speak of a "nice
distinction," by which we mean a subtle distinction not very easily
observed. But this is, of course, not the commonest sense in which we
use the word. By _nice_ we generally mean the opposite of _nasty_. A
"nice" observer was a good observer, and from this kind of idea the
word _nice_ came to have the general sense of "good" in some way.
_Nice_ is not a particularly dignified word, and is little used by
good writers, except in its more special and earlier sense. It is,
perhaps, less used in America than in England, and it is interesting
to notice that _nasty_, the word which in English always seems to be
the opposite of _nice_, is not considered a respectable word in
America, where it has kept its earlier meaning of "filthy," or
absolutely disgusting in some way.
Again, the word _disgust_, by which we express complete loathing for
anything, used merely to mean "dislike" or "distaste." In the same
way, the word _loathe_, by which we mean "to hate" or feel the
greatest disgust for, originally meant merely "to dislike." The
stronger meaning came from the fact that the word was often used to
describe the dislike a sick person feels for food. Every one knows how
strong this feeling can be, and it is from this that _loathe_ and
_loathsome_ took the strong meaning they now have. Curiously enough,
the adjective _loath_ or _loth_, from the same word, has kept the old
mild meaning. When we say we are "loth" to do a thing, we do not mean
that we hate doing it, but merely that we feel rather unwilling to do
it. In Old English, too, the word _filth_ and its derivative _foul_
were not quite such strong words as _dirt_ and _dirty_.
Again, the words _stench_ and _stink_ in Old English meant merely
"smell" or "odour." One could then speak of the "sweet stench" of a
flower; but in the later Middle Ages these words came to have their
present meaning of "smelling most disagreeably."
We saw how the taking of the word _fol_ from the French, meaning
"foolish," caused the meaning of several English words which before
had this meaning to be changed. The coming in of foreign words has
been a very common cause for such changes of meaning. The word _fiend_
in English has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning
in English, when it simply meant "enemy," the opposite to "friend."
When the word "enemy" itself was borrowed from the French, the word
_fiend_ came to be less and less often used in this sense. In time
_fiend_ came to be another word for _devil_, the chief enemy of
mankind. But in modern times we do not use the word much in this
sense. It is most often now applied to persons. It sounds rather
milder than calling a person a "devil," but it means exactly the same
thing.
The word _stool_ came to have its present special meaning through the
coming into English from the French of the word _chair_. Before the
Norman Conquest any kind of seat for one person was a "stool," even
sometimes a royal throne. The word _deer_ also had in Old English the
meaning of "beast" in general, but the coming in of the word _beast_
from the French led to its falling into disuse, and by degrees it
became the special name of the chief beast of chase.
Again, the Latin word _spirit_ led to the less frequent use of the
word _ghost_, which was previously the general word for _spirit_. When
spirit came to be generally used, _ghost_ came to have the special
meaning which it has for us now--that of the apparition of a dead
person.
A great many words have changed their meaning even since the time of
Shakespeare through being transferred from the subject of the feeling
they describe to the object, or from the object to the subject. Thus
one example of this is the word _grievous_. We speak now of a
"grievous wrong," or a "grievous sin," or a "grievous mistake," and
all these phrases suggest a certain sorrow in ourselves for the fact
described. But this was not the case in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
when it was decreed that a "sturdy beggar," a man who could work but
begged instead, should be "grievously whipped." In this case
_grievously_ merely meant "severely." On the other hand, the word
_pitiful_, which used to mean "compassionate," is no longer applied to
what we feel at seeing a sad thing, but to the sadness of the thing
itself. We do not now say a person is pitiful when he feels sorry for
some one, but we speak of a "pitiful sight" or a "pitiful plight."
The word _pity_ itself is used still in both ways, subjectively and
objectively. A person can feel "pity," and there is "pity" in the
thing for which we feel sorry. This is the sense in which it is used
in such expressions as "Oh, the pity of it!"
The word _hateful_ once meant "full of hate," but came to be used for
the thing inspiring hate instead of for the people feeling it. So,
_painful_ used to mean "painstaking," but of course has no longer
this meaning.
One very common way in which words have changed their meanings is
through the name of one thing being given to another which resembles
it. The word _pen_ comes from the Latin _penna_, "a feather;" and as
in olden days the ordinary pens were "quills" of birds, the name was
very good. We still keep it, of course, for the steel pens and gold
pens of to-day, which we thus literally speak of as feathers. _Pencil_
is a word with a somewhat similar history. It comes from the Latin
_penicillus_, which itself came from _peniculus_, or "little tail," a
kind of cleaning instrument which the Romans used as we use brushes.
_Pencil_ was originally the name of a very fine painter's brush, and
from this it became the name of an instrument made of lead which was
used for making marks. Then it was passed on to various kinds of
pencils, including what we know as a lead-pencil, in which, as a
writer on words has pointed out, there is really neither lead nor
pencil.
The word _handkerchief_ is also an interesting word. The word
_kerchief_ came from the French _couvre-chef_, "a covering for the
head." Another similar word is one which the Normans brought into
England, _curfew_, which means "cover fire." When the curfew bell rang
the people were obliged to extinguish all lights and fires. The
"kerchief" was originally a covering for the head. Then the fashion
arose of carrying a square of similar material in the hand, and so we
get _handkerchief_, and later _pocket-handkerchief_, which, if we
analyse it, is rather a clumsy word, "pocket-hand-cover-head." The
reason it is so is that the people who added _pocket_ and _hand_ knew
nothing of the real meaning of _kerchief_.
There are several words which used to mean "at the present time" which
have now come to mean "at a future time." This can only have come
about through the people who used them not keeping their promises, but
putting off doing things until later. The word _soon_ in Old English
meant "immediately," so that when a person said that he would do a
thing soon he meant that he would do it "instantly." The trouble was
that often he did _not_, and so often did this happen that the meaning
of the word changed, and _soon_ came to have its present meaning of
"in a short time." The same thing happened with the words _presently_
and _directly_, and the phrase _by-and-by_, all of which used to mean
"instantly." _Presently_ and _directly_ seem to promise things in a
shorter time than _soon_, but _by-and-by_ is a very uncertain phrase
indeed. It is perhaps because Scotch people are superior to the
English in the matter of doing things to time that with them
_presently_ still really means "instantly."
In all the examples we have seen of changes in the meaning of words it
is fairly easy to see how the changes have come about. But there are
some words which have changed so much in meaning that their present
sense seems to have no connection with their earlier meaning. The
word _treacle_ is a splendid example of this. It comes from a Greek
word meaning "having to do with a wild beast," and this seems to have
no connection whatever with our present use of the word _treacle_ as
another word for _syrup of sugar_. The steps by which this word came
to change its meaning so enormously were these. From the general
meaning of "having to do with a wild beast," it came to mean "remedy
for the bite of a wild beast." As remedies for wounds and bites were,
in the old days, generally thick syrups, the word came in time to mean
merely "syrup," and lastly the sweet syrup which we now know as
"treacle."
Another word which has changed immensely in its meaning is _premises_.
By the word _premises_ we generally mean a house or shop and the land
just round it. But the real meaning of the word _premises_ is the
"things already mentioned." It came to have its present sense from the
frequent use of the word in documents drawn up by lawyers. In these,
which very frequently dealt with business relating to houses, the
"things before mentioned" meant the "house, etc.," and in time people
came to think that this was the actual meaning of _premises_, and so
we get the present use of the word.
The word _humour_ is one which has changed its meaning very much in
the course of its history. It comes to us from the Latin word _humor_,
which means a "fluid" or "liquid." By "humour" we now mean either
"temper," as when we speak of being in a "good" or "bad" humour, or
that quality in a person which makes him very quick to find "fun" in
things. And from the first meaning of "temper" we have the verb "to
humour," by which we mean to give in to or indulge a person's whims.
But in the Middle Ages "humour" was a word used by writers on
philosophy to describe the four liquids which they believed (like the
Greek philosophers) that the human body contained. These four
"humours" were blood, phlegm, yellow bile (or choler), and black bile
(or melancholy). According to the balance of these humours a man's
character showed itself. From this belief we get the adjectives--which
we still use without any thought of their origin--_sanguine_
("hopeful"), _phlegmatic_ ("indifferent and not easily excited"),
_choleric_ ("easily roused to anger"), and _melancholy_ ("inclined to
sadness"). A person had these various temperaments according as the
amount of blood, phlegm, yellow or black bile was uppermost in his
composition. From the idea that having too much of any of the
"humours" would make a person diseased or odd in character, we got the
use of the word _humours_ to describe odd and queer things; and from
this it came to have its modern meaning, which takes us very far from
the original Latin.
It was from this same curious idea of the formation of the human body
that we get two different uses of the word _temper_. _Temper_ was
originally the word used to describe the right mixture of the four
"humours." From this we got the words _good-tempered_ and
_bad-tempered_. Perhaps because it is natural to notice more when
people are bad-tempered rather than good, not more than a hundred
years ago the word _temper_ came to mean in one use "bad temper." For
this is what we mean when we say we "give way to temper." But we have
the original sense of "good temper" in the expression to "keep one's
temper." So here we have the same word meaning two opposite things.
Several words which used to have a meaning connected with religion
have now come to have a more general meaning which seems very
different from the original. A word of this sort in English is
_order_, which came through the French word _ordre_, from the Latin
_ordo_. Though the Latin word had the meaning which we now give to the
word _order_, in the English of the thirteenth century it had only the
special meaning (which it still keeps as one of its meanings) of an
"order" or "society" of monks. In the fourteenth century it began to
have the meaning of "fixed arrangement," but the adjective _orderly_
and the noun _orderliness_ did not come into use until the sixteenth
century. The word _regular_ has a similar history. Coming from the
Latin _regula_, "a rule," its modern general meaning in English of
"according to rule" seems very natural; but the word which began to be
used in English in the fourteenth century did not take the modern
meaning until the end of the sixteenth century. Before this, it too
was used as a word to describe monastic orders. The "regular" clergy
were priests who were also monks, while the "secular" clergy were
priests but not monks. The words _regularity_, _regulation_, and
_regulate_ did not come into use until the seventeenth century.
Another word which has now a quite different meaning from its original
meaning is _clerk_. A "clerk" nowadays is a person who is employed in
an office to keep accounts, write letters, etc. But a "clerk" in the
Middle Ages was what we should now more generally call a "cleric," a
man in Holy Orders. As the "clerks" in the Middle Ages were
practically the only people who could read and write, it is, perhaps,
not unnatural that the name should be now used to describe a class of
people whose chief occupation is writing (whether with the hand or a
typewriter). People in the Middle Ages would have wondered what could
possibly be meant by a word which is common in Scotland for a "woman
clerk"--_clerkess_.
The words which change their meanings in this way tell us the longest,
and perhaps the best, stories of all.