CHAPTER XV.

CURIOSITIES OF LANGUAGE.

Language is the depository of the accumulated body of experience,

to which all former ages have contributed their part, and which

is the inheritance of all yet to come.--J. S. MILL.

Often in words contemplated singly there are boundless stores of

moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination,

laid up.--TRENCH.

A thoughtful English writer tells us that, when about nine years

old, he learned with much surprise that the word “sincere” was

derived from the practice of filling up flaws in furniture with

wax, whence _sine cera_ came to mean pure, not vamped up or

adulterated. This explanation gave him great pleasure, and abode

in his memory as having first shown him that there is a reason

in words as well as things. There are few cultivated persons who

have not felt, at some time in their lives, a thrill of surprise

and delight like that of this writer. Throughout our whole lives,

from the cradle to the grave, the stream of our history, inner and

outer, runs wonderfully blended with the texture of the words we

use. Dive into what subject we will, we never touch the bottom.

The simplest prattle of a child is but the light surface of a

deep sea containing many treasures. It would be hard, therefore,

to find in the whole range of inquiry another study which at once

is so fascinating, and so richly repays the labor, as that of the

etymology or primitive significations of words.

It is an epoch in one’s intellectual history when he first learns

that words are living and not dead things,--that in these children

of the mind are incarnated the wit and wisdom, the poetic fancies

and the deep intuitions, the passionate longings and the happy or

sad experiences of many generations. The discovery is “like the

dropping of scales from his eyes, like the acquiring of another

sense, or the introduction into a new world;” he never ceases

wondering at the moral marvels that everywhere reveal themselves

to his gaze. To eyes thus opened, dictionaries, instead of seeming

huge masses of word-lumber, become vast storehouses of historical

memorials, than which none are more vital in spirit or more

pregnant with meaning. It is not in oriental fairy-tales only

that persons drop pearls every time they open their mouths; like

Molière’s _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, who had been speaking prose all

his life without knowing it, we are dropping gems from our lips in

almost every hour of the day. Not a thought, or feeling, or wish

can we utter without recalling, by an unconscious sign or symbol,

some historic fact, some memory of “auld lang syne,” some bygone

custom, some vanished superstition, some exploded prejudice, or

some ethical divination that has lost its charm. Even the homeliest

and most familiar words, the most hackneyed phrases, are connected

by imperceptible ties with the hopes and fears, the reasonings and

reflections, of bygone men and times.

Every generation of men inherits and uses all the scientific

wealth of the past. “It is not merely the great and rich in the

intellectual world who are thus blessed, but the humblest inquirer,

while he puts his reasonings into words, benefits by the labors of

the greatest. When he counts his little wealth, he finds he has in

his hands coins which bear the image and superscription of ancient

and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in virtue of this

possession acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge within

his reach, which none could ever have attained to, if it were not

that the gold of truth once dug out of the mine circulates more

and more widely among mankind.” Emerson beautifully calls language

“fossil poetry.” The etymologist, he adds, finds the deadest word

to have been once a brilliant picture. “As the limestone of the

continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules,

so language is made up of images or tropes, which now, in their

secondary use, have long since ceased to remind us of their poetic

origin.”

Not only is this true, but many a single word, as Archbishop Trench

remarks, is itself a concentrated poem, in which are treasured

stores of poetical thought and imagery. Examine it closely, and

it will be found to rest upon some palpable or subtle analogy of

things material and spiritual, showing that, however trite the

image now, the man who first coined the word was a poet. The older

the word, the profounder and more beautiful the meanings it will

often be found to inclose; for words of late growth speak to the

head, not to the heart; thoughts and feelings are too subtle for

new words, and are conveyed only by those about which cluster

many associations. It is the use of words when new and fresh from

the lips of their inventors, before their vivid and picturesque

meanings have faded out or been obscured by their many secondary

significations, that gives such pictorial beauty, pith, and

raciness, to the early writers; “and hence to recall language,

to restore its early meanings, to re-mint it in novel forms, is

the secret of all effective writing and speaking,--of all verbal

expression which is to leave, as was said of the eloquence of

Pericles, stings in the minds and memories of the hearers.”

Language is not only “fossil poetry,” but it is also fossil

philosophy, fossil ethics, and fossil history. As in the

pre-Adamite rock are bound up and preserved the vegetable and

animal forms of ages long gone by, so in words are locked up

truths once known but now forgotten,--the thoughts and feelings,

the habits, customs, opinions, virtues and vices of men long since

in their graves. Language is, in short, “the depository of the

accumulated body of experience, to which all former ages have

contributed their part, and which is the inheritance of all yet to

come.”[43] It is “like amber, circulating the electric spirit of

truth, and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom.”[44] Compared

with this memorial of the past, these records of ancient and

modern intellectual dynasties, how poor are all other monuments of

human power, perseverance, skill, or genius! Unlike the works of

individual genius, or the cuneiform inscriptions which are found

in oriental countries on the crumbling fragments of half-calcined

stone, language gives us the history not only of individuals, but

of nations; not only of nations, but of mankind. It is, indeed,

“an admirable poem on the history of all ages; a living monument

on which is written the genesis of human thought. Thus ‘the ground

on which our civilization stands is a sacred one, for it is the

deposit of thought. For language, as it is the mirror, so it is the

product of reason, and, as it embodies thought, so it is the child

of thought. In it are embodied the sparks of that celestial fire

which from a once bright centre of civilization has streamed forth

over the inhabited earth, and which now already, after less than

three myriads of years, forms a galaxy round the globe, a chain of

light from pole to pole.’”

How pregnant with instruction is often the history of a single

word! Coleridge, who keenly appreciated the significance of words,

says that there are cases where more knowledge of more value may

be conveyed by the history of a word than by the history of a

campaign. Sometimes the germ of a nation’s life,--the philosophy of

some political, moral, or intellectual movement in a country,--will

be found coiled up in a single word, just as the oak is found in

an acorn. The word “ostracize” gives us a vivid picture of the

Athenian democracy, and of the period when oyster-shells were used

for ballots. It calls up the barbarity which held an election of

candidates for banishment; the arbitrary power which enabled the

vilest of the citizens, from mere envy of the reputation of the

best man in the city, to make him an exile; and the utter lack

and desecration of liberty, while its forms were fetiches for the

popular worship. The fact that the Arabs were the arithmeticians,

the astronomers, the chemists, and the merchants of the Middle

Ages, is shown by the words we have borrowed from them,--“algebra,”

“almanac,” “cypher,” “zero,” “zenith,” “alkali,” “alcohol,”

“alchemy,” “alembic,” “magazine,” “tariff,” “cotton,” “elixir”; and

so that the monastic system originated in the Greek, and not in the

Latin church, is shown by the fact that the words expressing the

chief elements of the system, as “monk,” “monastery,” “anchorite,”

“cenobite,” “ascetic,” “hermit,” are Greek, not Latin. What an

amount of history is wrapped up in the word “Pagan”! The term, we

learn from Gibbon, is remotely derived from Πάγη, in the Doric

dialect, signifying a fountain; and the rural neighborhood which

frequented the same derived the common appellation of _Pagus_ and

“Pagans.” Soon “Pagan” and “rural” became nearly synonymous, and

the meaner peasants acquired that name which has been corrupted

into “peasant” in the modern languages of Europe. All non-military

people soon came to be branded as Pagans. The Christians were the

soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused the “sacrament,”

or military oath of baptism, might deserve the metaphorical name

of Pagans. Christianity gradually filled the cities of the empire;

the old religion retired and languished, in the time of Prudentius,

in obscure villages. From _Pagus_, as a root, comes _pagius_,

first a villager, then a rural laborer, then a servant, lastly a

“page.” _Pagina_, first the inclosed square of cultivated land near

a village, graduated into the “page” of a book. _Pagare_, from

denoting the “field service” that compensated the provider of food

and raiment, was applied eventually to every form in which the

changes of society required the benefited to “pay” for what they

received. Again, when a Scotchman speaks of his “shacklebone,” he

not only conveys an idea of his wrist, but discovers by this very

term that slavery, or vassalage, continued so long in Scotland as

to impress itself indelibly on the language of the country.

Often where history is utterly dumb concerning the past, language

speaks. The discovery of the foot-print on the sand did not more

certainly prove to Robinson Crusoe that the island of which he

had fancied himself the sole inhabitant contained a brother man,

than the similarity of the inflections in the speech of different

peoples proves their brotherhood. Were all the histories of England

swept from existence, the study of its language,--developing the

fact that the basis of the language is Saxon, that the names of

the prominent objects of nature are Celtic, the terms of war and

government Norman-French, the ecclesiastical terms Latin,--would

enable us to reconstruct a large part of the story of the past,

as it even now enables us to verify many of the statements of

the chroniclers. Humboldt, in his “Cosmos,” eulogizes the study

of words as one of the richest sources of historical knowledge;

and it is probable that what comparative philology, yet in its

infancy, has already discovered, will compel a rewriting of the

history of the world. Even now it has thrown light on many of the

most perplexing problems of religion, history, and ethnography;

and it seems destined to triumphs of which we can but dimly

apprehend the consequences. On the stone tablets of the universe

God’s own finger has written the changes which millions of years

have wrought on the mountain and the plain; and in the fluid

air, which he coins into spoken words, man has preserved forever

the grand facts of his past history and the grand processes of

his inmost soul. “Nations and _languages_ against dynasties and

treaties,” is the cry which is remodelling the map of Europe; and

in our country, comparative philologists,--to their shame be it

said,--have labored with Satanic zeal to prove the impossibility

of a common origin of languages and races, in order to justify, by

scientific arguments, the theory of slavery. It has been said that

the interpretation of one word in the Vedas fifty years earlier

would have saved many Hindoo widows from being burned alive; and

now that the philologists of Germany and England have shown that

the iron network of _caste_, which for centuries has hindered the

development of India, is not a religious institution, and has no

authority in their sacred writings, but is the invention of an

arrogant and usurping priesthood,--or, at best, an erroneous

tradition, due to the half-knowledge or to the imposture of the

native pundits,--the British government will be able to inflict

penalties for the observance of the rules of _caste_, and thus to

relieve India from the greatest clog on its progress.

CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF WORDS.

Language, as it daguerreotypes human thought, shares, as we have

seen, in all the vicissitudes of man. It mirrors all the changes

in the character, tastes, customs, and opinions of a people, and

shows with unerring faithfulness whether, and in what degree, they

advance or recede in culture or morality. As new ideas germinate in

the mind of a nation, it will demand new forms of expression; on

the other hand, a petrified and mechanical national mind will as

surely betray itself in a petrified and mechanical language. It is

by no accident or caprice that

“Words, whilom flourishing,

Pass now no more, but banished from the court,

Dwell with disgrace among the vulgar sort;

And those which eld’s strict doom did disallow,

And damn for bullion, go for current now.”

Often with the lapse of time the meaning of a word changes

imperceptibly, until after some centuries it becomes the very

opposite of what it once was. To disinter these old meanings out

of the alluvium and drift of ages affords as much pleasure to the

linguist as to disinter a fossil does to the geologist.

An exact knowledge of the changes of signification which words have

undergone is not merely a source of pleasure; it is absolutely

indispensable to the full understanding of old authors. Thus,

for example, Milton and Thomson use “horrent” and “horrid” for

bristling, _e.g._,

“With dangling ice all _horrid_.”

Milton speaks of a “savage” (meaning woody, _silva_) hill, and of

“amiable” (meaning lovely) fruit. Again, in the well known lines of

the “Allegro,” where, Milton says, amongst the cheerful sights of

rural morn,

“And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the vale,”--

the words “tells his tale” do not mean that he is romancing or

making love to the milkmaid, but that he is _counting his sheep_

as they pass the hawthorn,--a natural and familiar occupation of

shepherds on a summer’s morning. The primary meaning of “tale” is

to count or number, as in the German _zahlen_. It is thus used in

the Book of Exodus, which states that the Israelites were compelled

to deliver their “tale of bricks.” In the English “tale” and in

the French _conte_ the secondary meaning has supplanted the first,

though we still speak of “keeping tally,” of “untold gold,” and

say, “Here is the sum twice-told.”

Again, Milton’s use of the word “jolly” in the following lines

from his “Sonnet to the Nightingale,” strikingly illustrates the

disadvantages under which poetry in a living, and consequently

ever-changing, language, labors:

“Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart doth fill,

While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.”

Though we may know the meaning which the word bore a little more

than two and a half centuries ago, yet it is impossible entirely to

banish from the mind the vulgar associations which have gathered

round it since.

It has been said that one of the arts of a great poet or

prose-writer, who wishes to add emphasis to his style,--to bring

out all the latent forces of his native tongue,--will often

consist in reconnecting a word with its original derivation, in

not suffering it to forget itself and its father’s house, though

it would. This Milton does sometimes with signal effect; but in

the great majority of cases his meaning becomes obscure to the

unlearned reader. In a great number of cases we must interpret his

words rather by their classical meanings than by their English

use. Thus in “Paradise Lost,” when Satan speaks of his having been

pursued by “Heaven’s _afflicting_ thunder,” the poet uses the word

“afflicting” in its original primary sense of striking down bodily.

Properly the word denotes a state of mind or feeling only, and is

not used to-day in a concrete sense. So when Milton, at the opening

of the same poem, speaks of

“The _secret_ top

Of Oreb or of Sinai,”

the meaning of the word “secret” is not that of the English

adjective, but is remote, apart, lonely, as in Virgil’s

_secretosque pios_. The absurdity of supposing the word to be the

same as our ordinary adjective led Bentley, among many ridiculous

“improvements” of Milton’s language, to change it to “sacred.”

Again, the word “recollect” is used in its etymological sense in

these lines from “Paradise Lost”:

“But he, his wonted pride

Soon recollecting, with high words,” etc.

So Milton uses the word “astonished” in its etymological sense of

“thunderstruck,” _attonitus_, as when he makes Satan say that his

associates

“Lie thus _astonished_ on the oblivious pool.”

Holland, in his translation of Livy, speaks of a knave who threw

some heavy stones upon a certain king, “whereof the one smote the

king upon his head, the other astonished his shoulder.”

Shakespeare, also, not unfrequently uses words in their classical

sense. Thus when Cleopatra speaks of

“Such gifts as we greet _modern_ friends withal,”

“modern” is used in the sense of “modal” (from _modus_, a fashion

or manner); a modern friend, compared with a true friend, being

what the fashion of a thing is, compared with the substance.

So,--as De Quincey, to whom we owe this explanation, has

shown,--when in the famous picture of life, “All the World’s a

Stage,” the justice is described as

“Full of wise saws and modern instances,”

the meaning is not “full of wise sayings and modern illustrations,”

but full of proverbial maxims of conduct and of trivial arguments;

_i.e._, of petty distinctions that never touch the point at issue.

“Instances” is from _instantia_, which the monkish and scholastic

writers always used in the sense of an argument. When in “Julius

Cæsar” we read,--

“And come down

With fearful bravery, thinking by this face

To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage,”

we must not attach to “bravery” its modern sense; and the same

remark applies to the word “extravagant” in the following passage

from “Hamlet”:

“Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine,” etc.

“Courage” is “good heart.” “Anecdote,”--from the Greek ἀν (not),

ἐκ (out), and δότα (given),--meant once a fact not given out

or published; now it means a short, amusing story. Procopius, a

Greek historian in the reign of Justinian, is said to have coined

the word. Not daring, for fear of torture and death, to speak of

some living persons as they deserved, he wrote a work which he

called “Anecdotes,” or a “Secret History.” The instant an anecdote

is published, it belies its title; it is no longer an anecdote.

“Allowance” formerly was used to denote praise or approval; as when

Shakespeare says in “Troilus and Cressida,”

“A stirring dwarf we do _allowance_ give

Before a sleeping giant.”

“To prevent,” which now means to hinder or obstruct, signified,

in its Latin etymology, to anticipate, to get the start of, and

is thus used in the Old Testament. “Girl” once designated a young

person of either sex. “Widow” was applied to men as well as women.

“Sagacious” once meant quick-smelling, as in the line

“The hound sagacious of the tainted prey.”

“Rascal,” according to Verstegan, primarily meant an “il-favoured,

lean, and worthelesse deer.” Thus Shakespeare:

“Horns! the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal.”

Afterward it denoted the common people, the _plebs_ as

distinguished from the _populus_. A “naturalist” was once a

person who rejected revealed truth, and believed only in natural

religion. He is now an investigator of nature and her laws, and

often a believer in Christianity. “Blackguards” were formerly

the scullions, turnspits, and other meaner retainers in a great

household, who, when a change was made from one residence to

another, accompanied and took care of the pots, pans, and other

kitchen utensils, by which they were smutted. Webster, in his play

of “The White Devil,” speaks of “a lousy knave, that within these

twenty years rode with the ‘black guard’ in the Duke’s carriage,

amongst spits and dripping-pans.” “Artillery,” which to-day means

the heavy ordnance of modern warfare, was two or three centuries

ago applied to any engines for throwing missiles, even to the bow

and arrow. “Punctual,” which now denotes exactness in keeping

engagements, formerly applied to space as well as to time. Sir

Thomas Browne speaks of “a ‘punctual’ truth”; and we read in other

writers of “a ‘punctual’ relation,” or “description,” meaning a

particular or circumstantial relation or description.

“Bombast,” now swelling talk, inflated diction without substance,

was originally cotton padding. It is derived from the Low Latin,

_bombax_, cotton. “Chemist” once meant the same as alchemist.

“Polite” originally meant polished. Cudworth speaks of “polite

bodies, as looking-glasses.” “Tidy,” which now means neat, well

arranged, is derived from the old English word “tide,” meaning

time, as in eventide. “Tidy” (German, _zeitig_) is timely,

seasonable. As things in right time are apt to be in the right

place, the transition in the meaning of the word is a natural one.

“Caitiff” formerly meant captive, being derived from _captivus_

through the Norman-French. The change of signification points

to the tendency of slavery utterly to debase the character,--to

transform the man into a cowardly miscreant. In like manner

“miscreant,” once simply a misbeliever, and applied to the most

virtuous as well as to the vilest, points to the deep-felt

conviction that a wrong belief leads to wrong living. Thus Gibbon:

“The emperor’s generosity to the ‘miscreant’ [Soliman] was

interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.” “Thought,” in

early English, was anxious care; _e.g._, “Take no ‘thought’ for

your life” (Matt, vi, 25). “Thing” primarily meant discourse, then

solemn discussion, council, court of justice, cause, matter or

subject of discourse. The “husting” was originally the house-thing,

or domestic court.

“Coquets” were once male as well as female. “Usury,” which now

means taking illegal or excessive interest, denoted, at first, the

taking of any interest, however small. A “tobacconist” was formerly

a smoker, not a seller, of tobacco. “Corpse,” now a body from which

the breath of life has departed, once denoted the body of the

living also; as in Surrey,

“A valiant _corpse_, where force and beauty met.”

We have already spoken of the striking change which the word

“incomprehensible” has undergone within the last three centuries.

“Wit,” now used in a more limited sense, at first signified the

mental powers collectively; _e.g._, “Will puts in practice what the

wit deviseth.” Later it came to denote quickness of apprehension,

beauty or elegance in composition, and Pope defined it as

“Nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”

Another meaning was a man of talents or genius. The word “parts,”

a hundred years ago, was used to denote genius or talents. Horace

Walpole, in one of his letters, says of Goldsmith that “he was an

idiot, with once or twice a fit of ‘parts.’” The word “loyalty”

has undergone a marked change within a few centuries. Originally

it meant in English, as in French, fair dealing, fidelity to

engagements; now it means, in England, fidelity to the throne, and,

in the United States, to the Union or the Constitution. “Relevant,”

which formerly meant relieving or assisting, is now used in the

sense of “relative” or “relating” to, with which, from a similarity

of sound, though without the least etymological connection, it

appears to have been confounded. The word “exorbitant” once meant

deviating from a track or orbit; it is now used exclusively in the

sense of excessive.

The word “coincide” was primarily a mathematical term. If one

mathematical point be superposed upon another, or one straight line

upon another between the same two points, the two points in the

first case and the two lines in the latter are said to coincide.

The word was soon applied figuratively to identity of opinion,

but, according to Prof. Marsh, was not fully popularized, at

least in America, till 1826. On the Fourth of July in that year,

the semi-centennial jubilee of the Declaration of Independence,

Thomas Jefferson, the author of that manifesto, and John Adams,

its principal champion on the floor of Congress, both also

Ex-Presidents, died; and this fact was noticed all over the world,

and especially in the United States, as a remarkable “coincidence.”

The death of Ex-President Monroe, also, on the Fourth of July five

years after, gave increased currency to the word. Our late civil

war has led to some striking mutations in the meaning of words.

“Contraband,” from its general signification of any article whose

importation or exportation is prohibited by law, became limited to

a fugitive slave within the United States’ military lines. “Secede”

and “secession,” “confederate” and “confederacy,” have also

acquired new special meanings.

DEGRADATION OF WORDS.

Another striking characteristic of words is their tendency

to contract in form and degenerate in meaning. Sometimes

they are ennobled and purified in signification; but more

frequently they deteriorate, and from an honorable fall into a

dishonorable meaning. I will first note a few examples of the

former:--“Humility,” with the Greeks and Romans, meant meanness

of spirit; “Paradise,” in oriental tongues, meant only a royal

park; “regeneration” was spoken by the Greeks only of the

earth in the springtime, and of the recollection of forgotten

knowledge; “sacrament” and “mystery” are words “fetched from the

very dregs of paganism” to set forth the great truths of our

redemption. On the other hand, “thief” (Anglo-Saxon, _theow_)

formerly signified only one of the servile classes; and “villain”

or “villein,” meant peasant,--the serf who, under the feudal

system, was _adscriptus glebæ_. The scorn of the landholders, the

half-barbarous aristocracy, for these persons, led them to ascribe

to them the most hateful qualities, some of which their degrading

situation doubtless tended to foster. Thus the word “villein”

became gradually associated with ideas of crime and guilt, till at

length it became a synonym for knaves of every class in society. A

“menial” was one of the many; “insolent” meant unusual; “silly,”

blessed,--the infant Jesus being termed by an old English poet

“that harmless ‘silly’ babe”; “officious” signified ready to do

kindly offices. “Demure” was used once in a good sense, without

the insinuation which is now almost latent in it, that the external

shows of modesty and sobriety rest on no corresponding realities.

“Facetious,” which now has the sense of buffoonish, originally

meant urbane. “Idiot,” from the Greek, originally signified only

a private man, as distinguished from an office-holder. “Homely”

formerly meant secret and familiar; and “brat,” now a vulgar and

contemptuous word, had anciently a very different signification, as

in the following lines from an old hymn by Gascoigne:

“O Israel, O household of the Lord,

O Abraham’s brats, O brood of blessed seed,

O chosen sheep that loved the Lord indeed.”

“Imp” once meant graft; Bacon speaks of “those most virtuous and

goodly young imps, the Duke of Sussex and his brother.” A “boor”

was once only a farmer; a “scamp” a camp deserter. “Speculation”

first meant the sense of sight; as in Shakespeare:

“Thou hast no speculation in those eyes.”

Next it was metaphorically transferred to mental vision, and

finally denoted, without a metaphor, the reflections and theories

of philosophers. From the domain of philosophy it has finally

travelled downward to the offices of stock-jobbers, share-brokers,

and all men who get their living by their wits, instead of by the

sweat of their brows. So “craft” at first meant ability, skill, or

dexterity. The origin of the term, according to Wedgewood, is seen

in the notion of seizing, expressed by the Italian, _graffiare_,

Welsh, _craff_, a hook, brace, holdfast. The term is then applied

to seizing with the mind, as in the Latin term “apprehend,”

“comprehend,” from _prehendere_, to seize in a material way.

“Cunning” once conveyed no idea of sinister or crooked wisdom.

“The three Persons of the Trinity,” says a reverent writer of the

fifteenth century, “are of equal cunning.” Bacon, a century later,

uses the word in its present sense of fox-like wisdom; and Locke

calls it “the ape of wisdom.” “Vagabond” is a word whose etymology

conveys no reproach. It denoted at first only a wanderer. But

as men who have no homes are apt to become loose, unsteady, and

reckless in their habits, the term has degenerated into its present

signification.

“Paramour” meant originally only lover; a “minion” was a favorite;

and “knave,” the lowest and most contemptuous term we can use when

insulting another, signified originally, as _knabe_ still does

in German, a boy. Subsequently, it meant servant; thus Paul, in

Wicliffe’s version of the New Testament, reverently terms himself

“a ‘knave’ of Jesus Christ.” A similar parallel to this is the

word “varlet,” which is the same as “valet.” “Retaliate,” from the

Latin _re_ (back) and _talis_ (such), naturally means to pay back

in kind, or such as we have received. But as, according to Sir

Thomas More, men write their injuries in marble, the kindnesses

done them in sand, the word “retaliate” is applied only to offences

or indignities, and never to favors. The word “resent,” to feel in

return, has undergone a similar deterioration. A Frenchman would

say, “_Il ‘ressentit’ une vive douleur_,” for “He felt acute pain”;

whereas we use the word only to express the sentiment of anger.

So “animosity,” which etymologically means only spiritedness, is

now applied to only one kind of vigor and activity, that displayed

in enmity and hate. “Defalcation,” from the Latin, _falx_, a

sickle or scythe, is properly a cutting off or down, a pruning or

retrenchment. Thus Addison: “the tea-table is set forth with its

usual bill of fare, and without any defalcation.” To-day we read of

a “defalcation in the revenue,” or “in a treasurer’s accounts,” by

which is meant a decrease in the amount of the revenue, or in the

moneys accounted for, irrespective of the cause,--a falling off.

This erroneous use of the word is probably due to a confusion of

it with the expression “fall away,” and with the noun “defaulter.”

Between the first word and either of the last two, however, there

is not the slightest etymological relationship. “Chaffer,” to

talk much and idly, primarily meant to buy, to make a bargain,

to higgle or dispute about a bargain. “Gossip” (God-akin) once

meant a sponsor in baptism. “Simple” and “simplicity” have sadly

degenerated in meaning. A “simple” fellow, once a man _sine

plica_ (without fold, free from duplicity), is now one who lacks

shrewdness, and is easily cheated or duped.

There are some words which, though not used in an absolutely

unfavorable sense, yet require a qualifying adjective to be

understood favorably. Thus, if a man is said to be noted for his

“curiosity,” a prying, impertinent, not a legitimate, curiosity

is supposed to be meant. So “critic” and “criticise” are commonly

associated with a carping, fault-finding spirit. “Lust” has

undergone a signal deterioration. In Chaucer it is used both as a

noun and a verb, and signifies wish, desire, pleasure, enjoyment,

without any evil connotation. “Parson” (_persona ecclesiæ_) had

originally no undertone of contempt. In the eighteenth century

it had become a nickname of scorn; and it was at a party of a

dozen parsons that the Earl of Sandwich won his wager, that no

one among them had brought his prayer-book or forgotten his

corkscrew. “Fellow” was originally a term of respect,--at least,

there was in it no subaudition of contempt; now it is suggestive

of worthlessness, if not of positively bad morals. Shakespeare did

not mean to disparage Yorick, the jester, when he said that “he was

a ‘fellow’ of infinite jest”; Pope, on the other hand, tells us, a

century or more later, that

“Worth makes the man, and want of it the _fellow_.”

“By a ‘fast’ man, I presume you mean a ‘loose’ one,” said Sir

Robert Inglis to one who was describing a rake. Of all the words

which have degenerated from their original meaning, the most

remarkable is the term “dunce,” of the history of which Archbishop

Trench has given a striking account in his work on “The Study of

Words.” In the Middle Ages certain theologians, educated in the

cathedral and cloister schools founded by Charlemagne and his

successors, were called Schoolmen. Though they were men of great

acuteness and subtlety of intellect, their works, at the revival

of learning, ceased to be popular, and it was considered a mark of

intellectual progress and advance to have thrown off their yoke.

Some persons, however, still clung to these Schoolmen, especially

to Duns Scotus, the great teacher of the Franciscan order; and many

times an adherent of the old learning would seek to strengthen

his position by an appeal to its great doctor, familiarly called

Duns; while his opponents would contemptuously rejoin, “Oh, you

are a ‘Duns-man,’” or, more briefly, “You are a ‘Duns.’” As the

new learning was enlisting more and more of the scholarship of

the age on its side, the title became more and more a term of

scorn; and thus, from that long extinct conflict between the old

and the new learning, the mediæval and the modern theology, we

inherit the words “dunce” and “duncery.” The lot of poor Duns, as

the Archbishop observes, was certainly a hard one. That the name

of “the Subtle Doctor,” as he was called, one of the keenest and

most subtle-witted of men,--according to Hooker, “the wittiest of

the school divines,”--should become a synonym for stupidity and

obstinate dulness, was a fate of which even his bitterest enemies

could never have dreamed.

COMMON WORDS WITH CURIOUS DERIVATIONS.

“Bit” is that which has been bit off, and exactly corresponds

to the word “morsel,” used in the same sense, and derived from

the Latin, _mordere_, to bite. “Bankrupt” means literally broken

bench. It was the custom in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

for the Lombard merchants to expose their wares for sale in the

market-place on benches. When one of their number failed, all

the other merchants set upon him, drove him from the market, and

“broke” his “bench” to pieces. _Banco rotto_, the Italian for

bench-broken, becomes _banqueroute_ in French, and in English

“bankrupt.” To the Lombard merchants, who flocked to England in

the thirteenth century, we owe also the words “bank,” “debtor,”

“creditor,” “usance” (the old word for interest), “journal,”

“diary,” “ledger,” “ditto,” and “£. s. d.,” which derives its

origin from _Lire_, _Soldi_, and _Denari_. “Alligator” is from

the Spanish _el lagarto_, the lizard, being the largest of the

lizard species. “Stipulation” is from _stipulum_, a straw, which

the Romans broke when they made a mutual engagement. “Dexterity”

is simply righthandedness. “Mountebank” means a quack-medicine

vendor,--from the Italian _montare_, to mount, and _banco_,

a bench; literally, one who mounts a bench to boast of his

infallible skill in curing diseases. “Quandary” is a corruption of

the French, _qu’en dirai (je)_? “what shall I say of it?”--and

expresses that feeling of uncertainty which would naturally prompt

such a question. “Faint” is from the French, _se feindre_, to

pretend; so that originally fainting was a pretended weakness or

inability. We have an example of the thing originally indicated by

the word, in the French theatres, where professional fainters are

employed, whose business it is to be overcome and to sink to the

floor under the powerful acting of the tragedians.

“Topsy-turvy” is said to be a contraction or corruption of

“top-side t’other way.” “Helter-skelter” is either from _hilariter

et celeriter_, “gaily and quickly,” or, more probably, from helter,

to hang, and _skelter_, order, _i.e._, “hang order.” “Hip! hip!

hurrah!” is said to have been originally a war-cry adopted by the

stormers of a German town, wherein a great many Jews had taken

refuge. The place being sacked, the Jews were all put to the sword,

amid the shouts of “_Hierosolyma est perdita!_” From the first

letters of these words (h. e. p.) an exclamation was contrived.

When the wine sparkles in the cup, and patriotic or other

soul-thrilling sentiments are greeted with a “Hip! hip! hurrah!”

it is well enough to remember the origin of a cry which reminds us

of the cruelty of Christians toward God’s chosen people. “Sexton”

is a corruption of “sacristan,” which is from _sacra_, the sacred

things of a church. The sacristan’s office was to take care of the

vessels of the service and the vestments of the clergy. Since the

Reformation, his duties in this respect have been greatly lessened,

and he has dug the graves,--so that the term now commonly means

grave-digger, though it still retains somewhat of its old meaning.

“Toad-eater” is a metaphor supposed to be taken from a mountebank’s

boy eating toads, in order to show his master’s skill in expelling

poison. It is more probable, however, that the phrase is a version

of the French, _avaler des couleuvres_, which means putting up with

all sorts of indignities without showing resentment. The propriety

of the term rests on the fact that dependent persons are often

forced to do the most nauseous things to please their patrons.

The same trick of pretending to eat reptiles, such as toads, is

held by some etymologists to be the origin of the terms “buffoon,”

“buffoonery,” from the Latin, _bufo_, a toad. Wedgwood derives it

from the French, bouffon, a jester, from the Italian, _buffa_,

a puff, a blast or a blurt with the mouth made at one in scorn.

A puff with the mouth indicates contempt; it is emblematically

_making light_ of an object. In “David Copperfield” we read:

“‘And who minds Dick? Dick’s nobody! Whoo!’ He blew a slight,

contemptuous breath, as if he blew himself away.”

“Cant” (Gaelic, _cainnt_, speech) is properly the language spoken

by thieves and beggars among themselves, when they do not wish

to be understood by bystanders. Subsequently it came to mean the

peculiar terms used by any other profession or community. Some

etymologists derive the word from the Latin, _cantare_, to sing,

and suppose it to signify the whining cry of professional beggars,

though it may have obtained its beggar sense from some instinctive

notion of the quasi-religious one. It has been noted that the whole

class of words comprising “enchant,” “incantation,” etc., were

primarily referable to religious ceremonies of some kind; and as

once an important part of a beggar’s daily labor was invoking, or

seeming to invoke, blessings on those who gave him alms, this,

with the natural tendency to utter any oft-repeated phrases in a

sing-song, rhythmical tone, gave to the word “cant” its present

signification. In Scotland the word has a peculiar meaning. About

the middle of the seventeenth century, Andrew and Alexander Cant,

of Edinburgh, maintained that all refusers of the covenant ought

to be excommunicated, and that all excommunicated might lawfully

be killed; and in their grace after meat they “praid for those

phanaticques and seditious ministers” who had been arrested and

imprisoned, that the Lord would pity and deliver them. From these

two Cants, Andrew and Alexander, it is said, all seditious praying

and preaching in Scotland is called “Canting.”

The tendency to regard money as the source of true happiness is

strikingly illustrated in the word “wealth,” which is connected

with “weal,” just as in Latin _beatus_ meant both blessed and rich,

and ὄλβιος the same in Greek. “Property” and “propriety” come from

the same French word, _propriété_; so that the Frenchman in New

York was not far out of the way, when in the panic of 1857 he said

he “should lose all his _propriety_.” The term “blue-stocking,”

applied to literary ladies, has a curious origin. Originally,

in England in 1760, it was conferred on a society of literary

persons of both sexes. The society derived its name from the

blue worsted stockings always worn by Benjamin Stillingfleet, a

distinguished writer, who was one of the most active promoters of

this association. This term was subsequently conferred on literary

ladies, from the fact that the accomplished and fascinating

Mrs. Jerningham wore blue stockings at the social and literary

entertainments given by Lady Montague. “Woman” is the _wif_ or

_web_-man, who stays at home to spin, as distinguished from the

weap-man, who goes abroad to use the weapon of war. The term

“man” is, of course, generic, including both male and female.

“Lady” primarily signifies bread keeper. It is derived from the

Anglo-Saxon, _hlæfdige_, _i.e._, she who looks after the loaf; or

else is a corruption of _hlâfweardige_, from _hlâf_, bread, loaf,

and _weardian_, to keep, look after. “Waist” is the same as waste;

that part of the figure which wastes,--that is, diminishes.

“Canard” has a very curious origin. M. Quêtelet, a French writer,

in the “Annuaire de l’Académie Française,” attributes the first

application of this term to Norbert Cornelïssen, who, to give a

sly hit at the ridiculous pieces of intelligence in the public

journals, stated that an interesting experiment had just been made

calculated to prove the voracity of ducks. Twenty were placed

together; and one of them having been killed and cut up into the

smallest possible pieces, feathers and all, was thrown to the other

nineteen, and most gluttonously gobbled up. Another was then taken

from the nineteen, and, being chopped small like its predecessor,

was served up to the eighteen, and at once devoured like the other;

and so on to the last, who thus was placed in the position of

having eaten his nineteen companions. This story, most pleasantly

narrated, ran the round of all the journals of Europe. It then

became almost forgotten for about a score of years, when it went

back from America with amplifications; but the word remained in its

novel signification.

“Abominable” was once supposed to have been derived from the Latin

words _ab_, from, and _homo_, a man, meaning repugnant to humanity.

It really comes from _abominor_, which again is from _ab_ and

_omen_; and it conveys the idea of what is in a religious sense

profane and detestable,--in short, of evil omen. Milton always

applies it to devilish, profane, or idolatrous objects. “Poltroon”

is _pollice truncus_, _i.e._, with the thumb cut off,--_pollex_,

Latin, meaning thumb, and _truncus_, maimed or mutilated. When

the Roman empire was about falling in pieces, the valor of the

citizens had so degenerated, that, to escape fighting, many cut off

their right thumbs, thus disabling themselves from using the pike.

“Farce” is derived from _farcire_, a Latin word meaning to stuff,

as with flour, herbs, and other ingredients in cooking. A farce is

a comedy with little plot, stuffed with ludicrous incidents and

expressions. “Racy” is from “race,” meaning family, breed, and

signifies having the characteristic flavor of origin, savoring of

the source.

“Trivial” may be from _trivium_, in the sense of _tres viæ_, a

place where three roads meet, and thus indicate that which is

commonplace, or of daily occurrence. But it is more probably from

_trivium_, in the sense in which the word was used in the Middle

Ages, when it meant the course of three arts, grammar, logic, and

rhetoric, which formed the common curriculum of the universities,

as distinguished from the _quadrivium_, which embraced four more,

namely, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Trivial

things in this sense may mean things that occur ordinarily, as

distinguished from higher or more abstruse things. The word “quiz”

has a remarkable origin, unless the etymologists who give its

derivation are themselves quizzing their readers. It is said that

many years ago, when one Daly was patentee of the Irish theatres,

he spent the evening of a Saturday in company with many of the wits

and men of fashion of the day. Gambling was introduced, when the

manager staked a large sum that he would have spoken, all through

the principal streets of Dublin, by a certain hour next day,

Sunday, a word having no meaning, and being derived from no known

language. Wagers were laid, and stakes deposited. Daly repaired to

the theatre, and dispatched all the servants and supernumeraries

with the word “Quiz,” which they chalked on every door and every

shop window in town. Shops being all shut next day, everybody

going to and coming from the different places of worship saw the

word, and everybody repeated it, so that “Quiz” was heard all

through Dublin; the circumstance of so strange a word being on

every door and window caused much surprise, and ever since, should

a strange story be attempted to be passed current, it draws forth

the expression “You are ‘quizzing’ me.” Some person who has a just

aversion to practical jokes, wittily defines a “quizzer” as “one

who believes me to be a fool because I will not believe him to be a

liar.”

“Huguenot” is a word whose origin is still a _vexata quæstio_

of etymology. Of the many derivations given, some of which are

ridiculously fanciful, _Eignots_, which Voltaire and others give

from the German, _Eidgenossen_, confederates, is the one generally

received. A plausible derivation is from _Huguenot_, a small

piece of money, which, in the time of Hugo Capet, was worth less

than a denier. At the time of Amboisi’s conspiracy, some of the

petitioners fled through fear; whereupon some of the countrymen

said they were poor fellows, not worth a Huguenot,--whence the

nickname in question. “Pensive” is a picturesque word, from

_pensare_, the frequentative of _pendere_, to weigh. The French

have _pensée_, a thought, the result of mental weighing. A pensive

figure is that in which a person appears to be holding an invisible

balance of reflection. “Bumper” is a corruption of _le bon père_,

meaning “the Holy Father,” or Pope, who was once the great toast

of every feast. As this was commonly the first toast, it was

considered that the glasses would be desecrated by being again used.

“Nice” is derived by some etymologists from the Anglo-Saxon,

_hnesc_, soft, effeminate; but there is good reason for believing

that it is from the Latin, _nescius_, ignorant, “Wise, and

nothing nice,” says Chaucer; that is, no wise ignorant. If so,

it is a curious instance of the extraordinary changes of meaning

which words undergo, that “nice” should come to signify accurate

or fastidious, which implies knowledge and taste rather than

ignorance. The explanation is, that the diffidence of ignorance

resembles the fastidious slowness of discernment. “Gibberish”

is from a famous sage, Giber, an Arab, who sought for the

philosopher’s stone, and used, perhaps, senseless incantations.

“Alert” is a picturesque word from the Italian, _all’ erte_,--on

the mound or rampart. The “alert” man is one who is wide-awake and

watchful, like the warder on the watch-tower, or the sentinel upon

the rampart. “By-laws” are not, etymologically, laws of inferior

importance, but the laws of “byes” or towns, as distinguished from

the general laws of a kingdom. “By” is Danish for town or village;

as “Whitby,” White Town, “Derby,” Deer Town, etc.

A writer in “Notes and Queries” suggests that the word “snobs”

may be of classical origin, derived from _sine obola_, without

a penny. It is not probable, however, that it was meant as a

sneer at poverty only. A more ingenious suggestion is that, as

the higher classes were called “nobs,”--_i.e._, _nobilitas_, the

nobility,--the “s-nobs” were those _sine nobilitate_, without any

blue blood in their veins, or pure aristocratic breeding. “Humbug”

is an expressive word, about the origin of which etymologists are

disagreed. An ingenious explanation, not given in the dictionaries,

is, that it is derived from “Hume of the Bog,” a Scotch laird, so

called from his estate, who lived during the reign of William and

Anne. He was celebrated in Edinburgh circles for his marvellous

stories, which, in the exhausting draughts they made on his

hearer’s credulity, out-Munchausened Munchausen. Hence, any tough

story was called “a regular Hume of the Bog,” or, by contraction,

“Humbug.” Another etymology of “humbug” is a piece of Hamburg

news; _i.e._, a Stock Exchange canard. Webster derives the word

from “hum,” to impose on, deceive, and “bug” a frightful object, a

bugbear. Wedgwood thinks it may come from the union of “hum” and

“buzz,” signifying sound without sense. He cites a catch, set by

Dr. Arne in “Notes and Queries”:

“‘Buzz,’ quoth the blue fly,

‘Hum,’ quoth the bee,

‘Buzz’ and ‘hum’ they cry.

And so do we.”

“Imbecile” is from the Latin, _in_ and _bacillum_, a walking

stick; one who through infirmity leans for support upon a stick.

“Petrels” are little Peters, because, like the apostles, they

can walk on the water. “Hocus pocus” is a corruption of _Hoc est

corpus_, “this is the body,” words once used in necromancy or

jugglery. “Chagrin” is primarily a hard, granulated leather, which

chafes the limbs; hence, secondarily, irritation or vexation.

“Canon” is from a Greek word meaning “cane”; first a hollow rule or

a cane used as a measure, then a law or rule. The word is identical

with “cannon,” so called from its hollow, tube-like form. Hence

it has been wittily said that the world in the Middle Ages was

governed first by canons, and then by cannons,--first, by Saint

Peter, and then by saltpetre.

“Booby” primarily denotes a person who gapes and stares about,

wondering at everything. From the syllable “ba,” representing the

opening of the mouth, are formed the French words _baier_, _béer_,

to gape, and thence in the patois of the Hainault, _baia_, the

mouth, and figuratively one who stands staring with open mouth,

_boubié_. Webster thinks the word is derived from the French,

_boubie_, a waterfowl. “Pet,” a darling, is from the French,

_petit_, which comes from the Latin, _petitus_, sought after. “My

pet” means literally “my sought after or desired one.” “Petty” is

also from the French, _petit_, little. “Assassin” is derived from

the Persian, _hashish_, an intoxicating opiate. “The Assassins”

were a tribe of fanatics, who lived in the mountains of Lebanon,

and executed with terror and subtlety every order entrusted to

them by their chief, the “Old Man of the Mountain.” They made a

jest of torture when seized, and were the terror alike of Turk

and Christian. They resembled the Thugs of India. “Blunderbuss”

(properly thunder-buss) is from the German _büchse_, applied

to a rifle, a box; hence “arquebuss” and “Brown Bess.” “Bosh”

is derived, according to some etymologists, from a Turkish word

meaning “empty,”--according to others, from the German, _bosse_, a

joke or trifle. Mr. Blackley, in his “Word-Gossip,” says it is the

pure gypsy word for “fiddle,” which suggests the semi-sanctioned

“fiddle-de-dee!” “Person” primarily meant an actor. The Roman

theatres, which could hold thirty to forty thousand spectators,

were so large that the actors wore masks containing a contrivance

to render the voice louder. Such a mask was called _persona_ (_per

sonare_, to sound through), because the voice sounded through it.

By a common figure of speech, the word meaning “mask” (_persona_)

was afterward applied to its wearer; so _persona_ came to signify

“actor.” But as all men are actors, playing each his part on the

stage of life, the word “person” came afterward to signify a man or

woman. “Parson” the “chief person” of a parish, is another form of

the same word. “Curmudgeon” is probably from “corn-merchant,” one

who tries to enrich himself by hoarding grain and withholding it

from others; or it may be from the French, _cœur_, the heart, and

_méchant_, wicked. “Haberdasher” is from the German, _Habt ihr das

hier?_ _i.e._, Have you this here? “Hoax” is from the Anglo-Saxon,

_husc_, mockery or contempt; or, perhaps it is from “hocuspocus,”

which was at one time used to ridicule the Roman Catholic doctrine

of transubstantiation.

“Right” is from the Latin _rectus_, ruled, proceeding in a straight

line; “wrong” is the perfect participle of “wring,” that which has

been “wrung” or wrested from the right; just as in French _tort_ is

from _torqueo_, that which is twisted. “Humble-pie” is properly

“umble-pie.” The umbles were the entrails or coarser parts of the

deer, the perquisite of the keeper or huntsman. “Pantaloon” is

from the Italian, _piante leone_ (_panta-leone_, _pantaloon_),

“the Planter of the Lion”; _i.e._, the Standard-Bearer of Venice.

The Lion of St. Mark was the standard of Venice. “Pantaloon” was

a masked character in the Italian comedy, the butt of the play,

who wore breeches and stockings that were all of one piece. The

Spanish language has _pañalon_, a slovenly fellow whose shirt

hangs out of his breeches. “Cheat” is from the Latin, _cadere_, to

fall. The word “escheats” first denoted lands that “fell” to the

crown by forfeiture. The “escheatours,” who certified these to the

Exchequer, practised so much fraud, that, by a natural transition,

the “escheatour” passed into “cheater,” and “escheat” into “cheat.”

“Salary” is from the Latin, _sal_, salt, which in the reign of the

Emperor Augustus comprised the provisions, as well as the pay, of

the Roman military officers. From “salary” came, probably, the

expression, “He is not worth his ‘salt,’” that is, his pay or

wages. “Kidnap” is from the German _kind_, or Provincial English,

_kid_, meaning “child,” and _nap_ or _nab_, “to steal,”--to steal

children. “Hawk,” in Anglo-Saxon, _hafoc_, points to the havoc

which that bird makes among the smaller ones; as “raven” expresses

the greedy or “ravenous” disposition of the bird so named. “Owl” is

said to be the past participle of “to yell” (as in Latin _ulula_,

the screech-owl, is from _ululare_), and differs from “howl” only

in its spelling. “Solecism” is from _Soli_, a town of Cilicia,

the people of which corrupted the pure Greek. “Squirrel” is from

two Greek words, σκία, a shade, and οὐρά, a tail. “Sycophant” is

primarily a “fig-shower”; one who informed the public officers

of Attica that the law against the exportation of figs had been

violated. Hence the word came to mean a common informer, a mean

parasite. “Parasite,” from the Greek παρά, beside, and σῖτος, food,

means literally one who eats at the table of another,--a privilege

which is apt to be paid for by obsequiousness and flattery.

“Sarcasm,” from the Greek, σάρξ, flesh, and κάζω, I tear, is

literally a tearing of the flesh. “Tribulation” is from the Latin

_tribulum_, a kind of sledge or heavy roller, which did the work

of the English flail, by hard grinding and wearing, instead of by

repeated light strokes. Troubles, afflictions and sorrows being

the divinely appointed means for separating the chaff from the

wheat of men’s natures,--the light and trivial from the solid and

valuable,--the early Christians, by a rustic but familiar metaphor,

called these sorrows and trials “tribulations,” threshings of the

inner spiritual man, by which only could he be fitted for the

heavenly garner. As Wither beautifully sings:

“Till the mill the grains in pieces tear,

The richness of the flour will scarce appear;

So till men’s persons great afflictions touch,

If worth be found, their worth is not much;

Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet

That value, which in threshing they may get.”

“Tabby,” a familiar name of cats, is the French _tabis_, which

comes from the Persian _retabi_, a rich watered silk, and

denotes the wavy bars upon their coats. “Schooner” has a curious

derivation. In 1713 Captain Andrew Robinson launched the first

vessel of this kind, with gaffs instead of the lateen yards until

then in use, and the luff of the sail bent to hoops on the mast.

As she slipped down the ways a bystander exclaimed, “Oh, how she

‘scoons’!”--whereupon the builder, catching at the word, replied,

“A ‘scooner’ let her be!” Originally the word was spelled without

the _h_. “Supercilious,” from _supercilium_, the eyebrow, is

literally knitting the eyebrows in pride. “Slave” chronicles the

contest between the Teutonic and Sclavonic or Slavonic races.

When a German captured a Russian or Bohemian, he would call him

a “sclave” or “slave,” whereby the word became associated with

the idea of servitude. In Oriental France, in the eighth century,

princes and bishops were rich in these captives.

“Servant” is from _servus_, which the Justinian code derives from

_serrare_, to preserve,--because the victor preserved his captives

alive, instead of killing them.

“Scrupulous” is from the Latin, _scrupulus_, a small, sharp

stone, such as might get into a Roman traveller’s open shoe, and

distress him, whence the further meaning of doubts, or a source

of doubt and hesitation. Afterward the word came to express a

measure of weight, the twenty-fourth part of an ounce; and hence

to be scrupulous is to pay minute, nice, and exact attention to

matters often in themselves of small weight. “Plagiarism” is

literally “man-stealing.” As books are one’s mental offspring,

the word came naturally to mean, first, the stealing of a book or

manuscript which the thief published as his own; secondly, quoting

from another man’s writings without acknowledgment. “Parlor,”

from _parler_, to speak, is, therefore, the “talking room,” as

“boudoir,” from _bouder_, to pout, is literally the “pouting-room.”

“Egregious” is from the Latin _ex_, from, and _grege_, flock or

herd. An “egregious” lie is one distinguished from the common

herd of lies, such as one meets with in every patent-medicine

advertisement and political newspaper. “Negotiate” is from

_negotior_, compounded of _ne ego otior_, I am not idle.

The origin of the word “caucus” has long been a vexed question

with etymologists. Till recently it was supposed by many to be a

corruption of “caulkers,” being derived from an association of

these men in Boston, who met to organize resistance to England just

before the revolutionary war. Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford,

Connecticut, has suggested a new and ingenious derivation of the

term, which is more satisfactory, and probably correct. Strachey,

in his “Historie of Travaile into Virginia,” 1610-12 (printed by

the Hakluyt Society, 1849), says that the Chechahamanias, a free

people, acknowledging the supremacy of Powhatan, were governed,

not by a _weroance_, commander, sent by Powhatan, but by their

priests, with the assistance of their elders; and this board was

called _cawcawwas_. Captain John Smith writes _cockerouse_ for

_cawcawwas_, in the sense of “captain”; but the English generally

understood it in the sense of “counsellor,” and adopted it from

the Indians, as Beverley states that it designates “one that has

the honor to be of the king’s or queen’s council,” a provincial

councillor, just as northern politicians now use the word _sachem_,

and formerly used _mugwomp_. The verb from which _cawcawwas_,

or _cockerouse_ comes, means primarily “to talk to,”--hence to

“harangue,” “advise,” “encourage,” and is found in all Algonquin

dialects, as Abnaki _kakesoo_, to incite, and Chippeway _gaganso_

(_n_ nasal), to exhort, urge, counsel. _Cawcawwas_, representing

the adjective form of this verb, is “one who advises, promotes,”--a

caucuser. “Manumit” is from _manus_, hand, and _mittere_, to

dismiss,--to dismiss a slave with a slap of the hand, on setting

him free. “Hypocrite” comes from a Greek word signifying one who

feigns or plays a part on the stage. “Kennel,” a dog house, is from

the Italian, _canile_, and this from the Latin, _canis_, a dog.

“Kennel,” in the sense of gutter, with its kindred words, “can,”

“cane,” and “channel,” is derived from _canna_, a cane, which is

like a tube.

“Apple-pie order” is a popular phrase of which few persons know

the meaning. Does it signify in order, or in disorder? A writer in

the “North British Review” favors the latter interpretation. He

thinks it has nothing to do with “apple” or “pie,” in the common

sense of those words. He believes that it is a typographical term,

and that it was originally “Chapel pie.” A printing house was,

and is to this day, called a chapel,--perhaps from the Chapel at

Westminster Abbey, in which Caxton’s earliest works are said to

have been printed; and “pie” is type after it is “distributed” or

broken up, and before it has been re-sorted. “‘Pie’ in this sense

came from the confused and _perplexing rules of the ‘Pie,’ that

is, the order for finding the lessons, in Catholic times_, which

those who have read, or care to read, the Preface to the ‘Book of

Common Prayer,’ will find there expressed and denounced. Here is

the passage: ‘Moreover the number and hardness of the rules called

the Pie, and the manifold changings of the service, was the cause

that to turn the book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that

many times there was more business to find out what should be read

than to read it when it was found out.’ To leave your type in ‘pie’

is to leave it unsorted and in confusion, and ‘apple-pie order,’

which we take to be ‘chapel-pie order,’ is to leave anything in a

thorough mess. Those who like to take the other side, and assert

that ‘apple-pie order’ means in perfect order, may still find

their derivation in ‘chapel-pie’; for the ordering and sorting of

the ‘pie’ or type is enforced in every ‘chapel’ or printing-house

by severe fines, and so ‘chapel-pie order’ would be such order of

the type as the best friends of the chapel would wish to see.” “The

bitter end,” a phrase often heard during the late civil war, has a

remarkable etymology. A ship’s cable has always two ends. One end

is fastened to the anchor and the other to the “bits,” or “bitts,”

a frame of two strong pieces of timber fixed perpendicularly in

the fore part of the ship, for the express purpose of holding the

cables. Hence the “bitter,” or “bitter end,” is the end fastened to

the bitts; and when the cable is out to the “bitter end,” it is all

out; the extremity has come.

Few persons who utter the word “stranger,” suspect that it has

its root in the single vowel _e_, the Latin preposition for

“from,” which it no more resembles than a bird resembles an egg.

The links in the chain are,--_e_, _ex_, _extra_, _extraneus_,

_étranger_, _stranger_. When a boy answers a lady, “Yes’m,” he does

not dream that his “m” is a fragment of the five syllables, _mea

domina_ (“madonna,” “madame,” “madam,” “ma’am” “’m”). The French

word _même_ is a striking illustration of what philologists call

“phonetic change,” which sometimes “eats away the whole body of a

word, and leaves nothing behind but decayed fragments.” Who would

believe that _même_ contains the Latin _semetipsissimus_? The words

“thrall” and “thraldom” have an interesting history. They come to

us from a period when it was customary to “thrill” (or drill) the

ear of a slave in token of servitude; and hence the significance of

Sir Thomas Browne’s remark, “Bow not to the omnipotency of gold,

nor ‘bore’ thy ear to its servitude.” The expression “‘signing’

one’s name” takes us back to an age when most persons made their

mark or “sign.” We must not suppose that this practice was then,

as now, a proof of the ignorance of the signer. Among the Saxons,

not only illiterate persons made this sign, but, as an attestation

of the good faith of the person signing, the mark of the cross

was required to be attached to the name of those who could write.

From its holy association, it was the symbol of an oath; and hence

the expression “God save the mark!” which so long puzzled the

commentators of Shakespeare, is now understood to be a form of

ejaculation resembling an oath. It is said that Charlemagne, being

unable to write, was compelled to dip the forefinger of his glove

in ink, and smear it over the parchment when it was necessary that

the imperial sign-manual should be fixed to an edict. “Window” is a

corruption of “wind-door,”--door to let in the wind.

The word “handkerchief” is curiously fashioned. “Kerchief,” the

first form of the word, is from the French _couvre-chef_, “a

head-covering.” If to “kerchief”, we prefix “hand,” we have a

“hand-head-covering,” or a covering for the head held in the hand,

which is palpably absurd; but when we qualify this word by “neck”

or “pocket,” we reach the climax beyond which confusion can no

farther go. How a covering for the “head” is to be held in the

“hand,” and yet carried in the “pocket,” it requires a more than

ordinarily vivid imagination to conceive. “Constable” is derived

from _comes stabuli_, or “Count of the stable,” who formerly had

charge of the king’s horses. “Bib” is from _bibere_, to drink, the

tucker being used to save the child’s clothes from whatever may be

spilt when it is bibbing.

“Dollar” is the German _thaler_, which is an abbreviation of

_Joachemsthaler_, the valley where it was coined.

“Host,” an army, or a multitude, is from _hostis_; “host,” an

entertainer, is from _hospes_; “host,” a sacrifice, is from

_hostia_. The word “rostrum” is from the Latin _rostra_, the

beak of a ship. After the submission of the Latins, 334 B.C.,

the vessels of Antium having been burnt, their beaks were made

to adorn the tribune in the Forum. From that time the _rostra_

became the indispensable decoration of the Forum, and hence the

name “rostrum” to denote a platform for orators. “Verdict” is from

_veredictum_, truly said. “Palliate” is from _pallium_, a cloak.

“Carat” is from the Arabic _kaura_, a bean, the standard weight for

diamonds. “Salmon” is from _saliendo_, which points to the “leaps”

it makes. A “cur,” from the Latin _curtus_, is a curtailed dog,

whose tail has been cut off for straying in the woods; a “terrier”

is from _terrarius_, an earth-dog; a “spaniel” is a Spanish dog;

a “mongrel” is a dog of mingled breed; and the mastiff guards

the _maison_, or house. A horse is called a “pony” when puny; a

“hack” from “hackney;” and the lady’s horse was called a “palfrey,”

because it was led _par le frein_, or by the rein.

A “palace” is so called from _Collis Palatinus_, one of the seven

hills of Rome, which was itself called Palatinus, from _Pales_,

a pastoral deity. On this hill stood the “Golden House” of Nero,

which was called the _Palatium_, and became the type of the palaces

of all the kings and emperors of Europe. The word “court” had its

origin in the same locality and in the same distant age. It was

on the hills of Latium that _cohors_ or _cors_ was first used in

the sense of a “hurdle,” an “enclosure,” a “cattle yard.” The

_cohortes_, or divisions of the Roman army, were thus named, so

many soldiers forming a pen or a court. _Cors_, _cortis_, became

in mediæval Latin _curtis_, and was used to denote a farm, or a

castle built by a Roman settler in the provinces, and finally

a royal residence, or palace. That a word originally meaning

“cow-pen,” or “cattle-yard,” should assume the meaning of “palace,”

and give rise to such derivatives as “courteous,” “courtesy,” and

“to court,” that is, to pay attentions, or to propose marriage,

is a striking example of the strange transformations which words

undergo in the course of ages. The “Court of the Star Chamber,” so

odious in English history, derived its name from the ceiling of

the room where it sat, which was dotted with stars. “Pontiff” has

an almost equally humble origin. It is from the _Pons Sublicius_,

which Ancus Marcus placed on wooden joists, and which was rebuilt

by the censor Æmilius Lepidus in the reign of the second of the

Cæsars,--the bridge which Horatius Cocles defended, and whose

construction, preservation, and maintenance were confided to the

college of priests,--that the word “pontiff” is derived. The word

“exchequer” comes, according to Blackstone, from the “checked”

cloth that covered the table behind which the money-changers sat.

“Suffrage” is from _suffragium_, a broken piece or potsherd, used

by the ancients in voting in their assemblies. “Easter” is from

the Anglo-Saxon, _Eastre_ (German, _Ostara_), a heathen goddess

whose feast was celebrated in the spring. Remains of the old pagan

worship have survived in Easter eggs, yule logs, and, on the

Continent of Europe, Whitsun fires.

“Mystery,” something secret or unknown, comes from _mu_, the

imitation of closing the lips; but “mystery,” in the Mystery Plays,

such as continue to be performed at Ammergan, in Bavaria, is a

corruption of _ministerium_; it meant a religious ministry, or

service, had nothing to do with mystery, and should be spelled

with an _i_, and not with a _y_. “Puny” is from the French

_puis-né_, “since born,” hence, by metaphor, sickly, inferior,

diminutive. From the same source is derived “puisne” (that is,

younger, or inferior) judge. The phrase “True Blue,” applied to the

Presbyterians, is said by Dean Stanley to be owing to the distinct

dress of the Scotch Presbyterian clergy, which at one time was a

blue gown and a broad blue bonnet. The Episcopal clergy either wore

no distinctive dress in public services, or wore a black gown.

The Rev. Dr. Murray, however, in an address before the Assembly

of the Free Church of Scotland, gave a different explanation of

the phrase: “A Scotchman once told me that when we were persecuted

as a denomination, the minister was wont to go to the mountains,

and when there was to be a communion a blue flag was held up as a

signal or notice, and also as an invitation to attend, and some

regard this as the origin of the term; but on a visit to Pompeii,

a few years ago, I spent some time in inspecting the splendid

frescoes of variegated hues. I found all colors had faded except

the blue, and that was as bright as when first put on, though

nearly two thousand years previously. The ‘true blue’ never gives

out,--never changes. So, when we say of a man ‘he is true blue,’ it

is equivalent to saying he is firm in and true to his principles.”

“France” owes its name to the Franks, who conquered her native

Celts. The word _Franc_ comes, according to a German philologist,

either from the Teutonic _franhô_, “bold,” “frank,” or from

_franca_, a sharp, double-edged battle-axe, which the Franks hurled

with great dexterity in attacking their enemies. From _Franc_ are

derived our words “franchise” and “enfranchisement.”

One of the most interesting classes of common words with curious

derivations is that of the names of things or acts which were

once names of persons. Language teems in this way with honors to

the great and good men who have been benefactors of their race;

and it also avenges the wrongs of humanity by impaling the very

names of the wrong-doers in a perpetual crucifixion. Many words of

this class betray their origin at once. It is easy to recognize

Tantalus in “to tantalize,” Epicurus in “epicure,” Mesmer in

“mesmerism,” Gordius in the “gordian” knot which Alexander cut,

Galvani in “galvanism,” Volta in the “voltaic” pile, Daguerre in

“daguerreotype,” and McAdam and Burke in “to macadamize” and “to

burke.” But when we read or hear of a work on “algebra,” or of

a person who has uttered “gibberish,” we get no hint, at first,

of Giber or Geber, the famous Arabian sage, who sought for the

philosopher’s stone, and used, perhaps, senseless incantations.

“Artesian,” applied to a well, does not inform us that such a well

was first cut through the chalk basin of the province of Artois.

We speak of a “dun” without suspecting that the word came from the

name of a stern bailiff in the time of Henry VII, one Dun, who was

eminently successful in collecting debts. We hear of a “maudlin”

speech without thinking of Mary Magdalen; of a “lazaretto,” without

being reminded of Lazarus; of “simony” without a suggestion of

Simon Magus; and of “silhouettes,” without a suspicion that it

was the unpopular French minister of finance, M. de Silhouette,

whose persistent economy doomed his name to be affixed to the

slight and cheap outline portraits thus named. “Martinet” does

not recall the rigid disciplinarian in the army of Louis XIV, nor

does a “tram-road” point very plainly to Outram, the inventor. In

“saunterer” we do not readily detect _La Sainte Terre_, “the Holy

Land,” the pilgrims to which took their own time to get there; nor

would a “pander” ever remind us of the Trojan general Pandarus, or

“tawdry” of the fair of St. Etheldreda, or St. Awdry, where gaudy

finery was sold. “Music,” “museum,” and “mosaic,” do not inevitably

suggest the Muses, nor does a “pasquinade” tell us about the statue

of an ancient gladiator which was exhumed at Rome, in the peculiar

physiognomy of which the wits of that city detected a resemblance

to Pasquino, a snappish cobbler, who lived near by, and on the

pedestal of which it became a practice to post lampoons. Few men

think of Jaque, of Beauvais, as they put on “jackets”; of Blacket,

who first manufactured the article, when they lie under “blankets”;

or of Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian priest, when they

“hermetically” seal a bottle or fruit can. Excepting the readers of

Pascal, it is probable that not many Frenchmen detect in the word

_escobarder_, “to equivocate,” the name of the great casuist of the

Jesuits, Escobar, whose subtle devices for the evasion of the moral

law have been immortalized in the “Provincial Letters.”

Vulcan is still at his forge in “volcanoes,” and has even descended

so low as to “vulcanize” rubber; and though “Great Pan is dead,”

he comes to life again in every “panic.” A “sandwich” calls to

mind Lord Sandwich, the inveterate gamester, who begrudged the

time necessary for a meal; and the “spencer” recalls Lord Spencer,

who in hunting lost one skirt of his coat, and tore off the

other,--which led some inventive genius to make half-coats, and

call them “spencers.” Of the two noble lords it has been said that

“The one invented half a coat,

The other half a dinner.”

Epic and dramatic poetry, and fiction generally, have added

much to the force and suggestiveness of speech. What apt and

expressive terms are “utopian”[45] (from the name given by Sir

Thomas More to his imaginary island), and “quixotic”! With what

other words could we supply the place of Dean Swift’s “liliputian”

and “brobdingnagian,” Kenny’s “Jeremy Diddler,” or Dickens’s

“pickwickian” and “Circumlocution Office”? What convenient terms

are “thrasonical,” from Thraso, the braggart of the Roman comedy,

and “rodomontade,” from Rodamonte, a hero of Boiardo, who, strange

to say, does not brag and bluster, as the word based on his name

seems to imply! It is said that Boiardo, when he had hit upon the

name of his hero, had the village bells rung for joy. To Homer we

are indebted for “stentorian,” that is, loud-voiced, from Stentor,

the Greek herald, whose voice surpassed the united shout of fifty

men; and for the word “to hector,” founded on the big talk of the

Trojan hero.

The language of savages teems with expressions of deep interest

both to the philologist and the student of human nature. Speech

with them is a perpetual creation of utterances to image forth the

total picture in their minds. The Indian “does not analyze his

thoughts or separate his utterances; his thoughts rush forth in a

troop. His speech is as a kindling cloud, not as radiant points

of light.” The Lenni Lenape Indians express by one polysyllable

what with us requires seven monosyllables and three disyllables,

viz.: “Come with the canoe and take us across the river.” This

polysyllable is _nadholineen_, and it is formed by taking parts

of several words and cementing them into one. In the Iroquois

language one word of twenty-one letters expresses this sentence

of eighteen words: “I give some money to those who have arrived,

in order to buy them more clothes with it.” The apparent wealth

of synonyms and of grammatical forms in savage languages is due,

not to the mental superiority of the races that speak them, but to

their inferiority,--their deficiency in the power of abstraction.

“The more barbarous a language,” says Herder, “the greater is the

number of its conjugations.” We must not suppose that simplicity

in language precedes complexity: simplicity is the triumph of

science, not the spontaneous result of intelligence. The natives

of the Society Isles have one word for the tail of a dog, another

for the tail of a bird, and a third for the tail of a sheep, while

for “tail” itself, “tail” in the abstract, they have no word

whatever. The Mohicans have words for wood-cutting, cutting the

head, etc., yet no verb meaning simply to cut. Even the Anglo-Saxon

language, which had a sufficiency of words for all shades of green,

red, blue, yellow, had to borrow from the Latin the abstract word

“color,” and, while possessing abundant names for every sort of

crime, derived from the same source the abstract words “crime” and

“transgression.”

Some Indian tribes call a squirrel by a name signifying that he

“can stick fast in a tree”; a mole, by a word signifying “carrying

the right hand on the left shoulder”; and they have a name for a

horse which means “having only one toe.” Among the savages of the

Pacific, “to think” is “to speak in the stomach.”

WORDS OF ILLUSIVE ETYMOLOGY.

In the lapse of ages words undergo great changes of form, so that

it becomes at last difficult or impossible to ascertain their

origin. Terms, of which the composition was originally clear, are

worn and rubbed by use like the pebbles which are fretted and

rounded into shape and smoothness by the sea waves or by a rapid

stream. Like the image and superscription of a coin, their meaning

is often so worn away that one cannot make even a probable guess

at their origin. One of the commonest causes of the corruptions of

words, by which their sources and original meanings are disguised,

is the instinctive dislike we feel to the use of a word that is

wholly new to us, and the consequent tendency to fasten upon it

a meaning which shall remove its seemingly arbitrary character.

Foreign words, therefore, when adopted into a language, are

especially liable to these changes, being corrupted both in

pronunciation and orthography. By thus anglicizing them, we not

only avoid the uncouth, barbarous sounds which are so offensive

to the ear, but we help the memory by associating the words with

others already known.

The mistakes which have been made in attempting to trace the origin

of words thus disguised, have done not a little, at times, to

bring philology into contempt. The philologist, unless he has much

native good sense, and rules his inclinations with an iron rod,

is apt to become a verbomaniac. There is a strange fascination in

word-hunting, and his hobby-horse, it has been aptly said, is a

strong goer that trifles never balk. “To him the British Channel is

a surface drain, the Alps and Apennines mere posts and rails, the

Mediterranean a simple brook, and the Himalayas only an outlying

cover.” Cowper justly ridicules those word-hunters who, in their

eagerness to make some startling discovery, never pause to consider

whether there is any historic connection between two languages, one

of which is supposed to have borrowed a word from another,--

“Learned philologists, who chase

A panting syllable through time and space,

Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,

To Gaul,--to Greece,--and into Noah’s ark.”

A fundamental rule, to be kept constantly in sight by those who

would not etymologize at random, is, that no amount of resemblance

between words in different languages is sufficient to prove their

relationship, nor is any amount of seeming unlikeness in sound or

form sufficient to disprove their consanguinity. Many etymologies

are true which appear improbable, and many appear probable which

are not true. As Max Müller says: “Sound etymology has nothing to

do with sound. We know words to be of the same origin which have

not a single letter in common, and which differ in meaning as

much as black and white.” On the other hand, two words which have

identically the same letters may have no etymological connection.

An instance of the last case is the French _souris_, a smile,

and _souris_, a mouse, from the Latin _subridere_ and _sorex_

respectively. Fuller amusingly says that “we are not to infer

the Hebrew and the English to be cognate languages because one

of the giants, son of Anak, was called _A-hi-man_;” yet some of

his own etymologies, though witty and ingenious, are hardly more

correct than this punning derivation. Thus “compliments,” he says,

is derived from _à completè mentiri_, because compliments are in

general completely mendacious; and he quotes approvingly Sir John

Harrington’s derivation of the old English “elf” and “goblin,” from

the names of two political factions of the Empire, the Guelphs and

the Ghibellines.

Archbishop Trench speaks of an eminent philologist who deduced

“girl” from _garrula_, girls being commonly talkative.

“Frontispiece” is usually regarded as a piece or picture in front

of a book; whereas it means literally “a front view,” being from

the Low Latin, _frontispicium_, the forefront of a house. The

true origin of many words is hidden by errors in the spelling.

“Bran-new” is brand-new, _i.e._, “burnt new.” “Grocer” should be

“grosser,” one who sells in the gross; “pigmy” is properly “pygmy,”

as Worcester spells it, and means a thing the size of one’s fist

(πυγμή). “Policy,” state-craft, is rightly spelled; but “policies

of insurance” ought to have the _ll_, the word being derived from

_polliceor_, to promise or assure. “Island” looks as if it were

compounded of “isle” and “land”; but it is the same word as the

Anglo-Saxon _ealand_, water-land, compounded of _ea_, water, and

“land.” So Jers_ey_ is literally “Cæsar’s island.” “Lieutenant”

has been pronounced “leftenant,” from a notion that this officer

holds the “left” of the line while the captain holds the right. The

word comes from the French, _lieu-tenant_, one holding the place of

another.

“Wiseacre” has no connection with “acre.” The word is a corruption,

both in spelling and pronunciation, of the German _weissarger_,

a “wise-sayer,” or sayer of wise maxims. “Gooseberry,” Dr.

Johnson explains as “a fruit eaten as a sauce for goose.” It is,

however, a corruption of the German, _krausbeere_,--from _kraus_

or _gorse_, crisp; and the fruit gets its name from the upright

hairs with which it is covered. “Shame-faced” does not mean having

a face denoting shame. It is from the Anglo-Saxon, _sceamfaest_,

protected by shame. “Surname” is from the French, _surnom_,

meaning additional name, and should not, therefore, be spelled

“sirname,” as if it meant the name of one’s sire. “Freemason” is

not half Saxon, but is from the French, _frèremaçon_, brother

mason. “Foolscap” is a corruption of the Italian, _foglio capo_,

a full-sized sheet of paper. “Country-dance” is a corruption of

the French _contre-danse_, in which the partners stand in opposite

lines.

“Bishop,” which looks like an Anglo-Saxon word, is from the Greek.

It means primarily an overseer, in Latin _episcopus_, which the

Saxons broke down into “biscop,” and then softened into “bishop.”

There was formerly an adjective “bishoply”; but as, after the

Norman Conquest, the bishops, and those who discussed their

rights and duties, used French and Latin rather than English,

“episcopal” has taken its place. Among the foreign words most

frequently corrupted are the names of plants, which gardeners, not

understanding, change into words that sound like the true ones,

and with which they are familiar. In their new costume they often

lose all their original significance and beauty. To this source

of corruption we owe such words as “dandelion,” from the French,

_dent de lion_, lion’s tooth; “rosemary,” from _ros marinus_;

“quarter-sessions rose,” the meaningless name of the beautiful

_rose des quatre saisons_; “Jerusalem artichoke,” into which, with

a ludicrous disregard for geography, we have metamorphosed the

sunflower artichoke, _articiocco girasole_, which came to us from

Pery, through Italy; and “sparrow-grass,” which we have substituted

for “asparagus.”

Animals have fared no better than plants; the same dislike of

outlandish words, which are meaningless to them, leads sailors to

corrupt Bellerophon into “Billy Ruffian,” and hostlers to convert

Othello and Desdemona into “Odd Fellow and Thursday morning,”

and Lamprocles into “Lamb and Pickles.” The _souris dormeuse_,

or sleeping mouse, has been transformed into a “dormouse”; the

hog-fish, or _porcpisce_, as Spenser terms him, is disguised as

a “porpoise”; and the French _écrevisse_ turns up a “crayfish”

or “crawfish.” The transformations of the latter word, which has

passed through three languages before attaining its present form,

are among the most surprising feats of verbal legerdemain. Starting

on its career as the old High German _krebiz_, it next appears

in English as “crab,” and in German as _krebs_, or “crab,” from

the grabbing or clutching action of the animal. Next it crosses

the Rhine, and becomes the French _écrevisse_; then crosses the

Channel, and takes the form of _krevys_; and, last of all, with

a double effort at anglicizing, it appears in modern English as

“crawfish” or “crayfish.” The last two words noticed illustrate

the tendency which is so strong, in the corruption of words, to

invent new forms which shall be appropriate as well as significant,

other examples of which we have in “wormwood” from _wermuth_,

“lanthorn” from _laterna_, “beefeater” from _buffetier_, “rakehell”

from _racaille_, “catchrogue” from the Norman-French _cachreau_,

a bum-bailiff, and “shoot” for _chute_, a fall or rapid. So

the French, _beffroi_, a stronghold or tower,--a movable tower

of several stories used in besieging,--has been corrupted into

“belfry,” though there is no such French word as “bell.”

Often the corrupted form gives birth to a wholly false explanation.

Thus in the proverbial _dormir comme une taupe_, which has been

twisted into the phrase “to sleep like a top,” there is no

trace of the mole; and the corruption of _acheter_, to buy, into

“achat,”--which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was in

London the word for trading, and was first pronounced and then

written “acat,”--led to the story that Whittington, the famous

Lord Mayor, obtained his wealth by selling and re-selling “a cat.”

There is no hint in “somerset” of its derivation from the Italian,

_soprasalto_, an overleap, through the French, _sobresault_, and

the early English, to “somersault”; nor would the shrewdest guesser

ever discover in _faire un faux pas_, to commit a blunder, the

provincial saying, “to make a fox’s paw.” The word “ceiling,” from

the old French _seel_, “a seal,” was formerly written “seeling,”

and meant a wainscoating, a covering with boards for the purpose

of sealing up chinks and cracks. The spelling was changed from an

opinion that the word is derived from _ciel_, which means “heaven”

and “a canopy.”

Among the most frequent corruptions are the names of places and

persons. Thus Penne, Coombe, and Ick, the former name of Falmouth,

has been transformed into “Penny-come-quick”; and the corruption of

_Chateau Vert_ into “Shotover” has led to the legend that Little

John “shot over” the hill of that name near Oxford, England.

_Leighton-beau-desert_ has been converted into “Leighton-Buzzard”;

Bridge-Walter, in Somersetshire, into “Bridgewater.” The

_Chartreuse_ has become the “Charter-House.” Sheremoniers Lane,

so called because the artisans dwelt there whose business it was

to sheer or cut bullion into shape for the die, became first

“Sheremongers Lane,” and then, from its nearness to St. Paul’s

Cathedral, and an analogy with Amen Corner and Paternoster Row,

passed into “Sermon Lane.” The origin of the well known legend

of Bishop Hatto, who forestalled the corn from the poor, and

was devoured in his fortress on the Rhine by rats, is owing, it

is said, to a corruption of the name of the _maut-thurm_, or

custom-house, into the _mäuse-thurm_, or “Mouse-tower.” The Cologne

myth of the eleven thousand virgins is supposed by an English

philologist to have sprung from the name of St. Undecemilla, a

virgin martyr. “The insertion of a single letter in the calendar

has changed this name into the form ‘_Undecem millia Virg. Mart._’

The bones of the eleven thousand, which are reverently shown to

the pious pilgrim, have been pronounced by Professor Owen to

comprise the remains of almost all the quadrupeds indigenous to the

district.” The name “Gypsies” is a misnomer springing out of an

error in ethnology. When they first appeared in Europe, nearly five

centuries ago, their dark complexion and their unknown language led

men to suppose that they were Egyptians, which word was corrupted

into “Gypsies.” Boulogne Mouth was corrupted by the British sailors

into “Bull and Mouth”; and Surajah Dowlah, the name of the Bengal

prince who figured in the famous Black Hole atrocity, the British

soldiers persisted in anglicizing into “Sir Roger Dowlas”! “Bedlam”

is a corruption of Bethlehem, and gets its meaning from a London

priory, St. Mary’s of Bethlehem, which was converted into a lunatic

asylum.

“To curry favor” is said to be a corrupt translation of the French

proverbial phrase _étriller Fauveau_, “to curry the chestnut

horse.” It was usual to make a proper name of the color of a

horse, as Bayard, Dun, Ball, Favel, etc. Hence the proverbs, “To

have Ball in the stable,” “Dun in the mire,” “To curry Favel,” in

which last some unknown Bentley substituted “favor” for Favel when

the meaning of the latter had ceased to be understood. Another

striking illustration of the freaks of popular usage by which the

etymology of words is obscured, is the word “causeway.” Mr. W. W.

Skeat, in a late number of “Notes and Queries,” states that the old

spelling of the word was “calcies.” The Latin was _calceata via_,

a road made with lime; hence the Spanish, _calzada_, a paved way,

and the modern French, _chaussée_. “The English Word,” Mr. Skeats

says, “used to be more often spelled ‘causey,’ as, for instance,

by Cotgrave; and popular etymology, always on the alert to infuse

some sort of meaning into a strange word, turned ‘causey’ into

‘causeway,’ with the trifling drawback that, while we all know what

‘way’ means, no one can extract any sense out of ‘cause.’”

Words from the dead languages have naturally undergone the most

signal corruptions, many of them completely disguising the

derivation. Sometimes the word is condensed, as in “alms,” from

the Greek ἐλεημοσύνη in early English, “almesse,” now cut down

to four letters; “summons,” a legal term, abbreviated (like

the _fi. fa._ of the lawyers) from _submoneas_; “palsy,” an

abridgment of “paralysis,” literally a relaxation; “quinsy,” in

French _esquinancie_, which, strange to say, is the same word as

“synagogue,” coming, like this last, from σύν together, and ἄγω,

to draw. “Megrim” is a corruption of “hemicrany,” a pain affecting

half of the head. “Treacle,” now applied only to molasses or sirup,

was originally viper’s flesh made into a medicine for the viper’s

bite. It is called in French _thériaque_, from a corresponding

Greek word; in early English, “triacle.” “Zero” is a contraction

of the Italian _zephiro_, a zephyr, a breath of air, a nothing.

Another name for it is “cipher,” from the Arabic, _cifr_, empty.

CONTRADICTORY MEANINGS.

Among the curious phenomena of language one of the most singular

is the use of the same word in two distinct senses, directly

opposed to each other. Ideas are associated in the mind not only

by resemblance but by contrast; and thus the same root, slightly

modified, may express the most opposite meanings. A striking

example of this, is the word “fast,” which is full of contradictory

meanings. A clock is called “fast,” when it goes too quickly; but a

man is told to stand “fast,” when he is desired to stand still. Men

“fast” when they have nothing to eat; and they eat “fast” after a

long abstinence. “Fast” men, as we have already seen, are apt to be

very “loose” in their habits. When “fast” is used in the sense of

“abstinence,” the idea may be, as in the Latin, _abstineo_, holding

back from food; or the word may come from the Gothic, _fastan_,

“to keep” or “observe,”--that is, the ordinance of the church. The

verb “to overlook” is used in two contradictory senses; as, he

overlooked the men at work, he overlooked the error.

The word “nervous” may mean either possessing or wanting nerve.

A “nervous” writer is one who has force and energy; a “nervous”

man is one who is weak, sensitive to trifles, easily excited. The

word “post,” from the Latin _positum_, placed, is used in the most

various senses. We speak of a “post”-office, of “post”-haste, of

“post”-horses, and of “post”-ing a ledger. The contradiction in

these meanings is more apparent than real. The idea of “placing”

is common to them all. Before the invention of railways, letters

were transmitted from place to place (or post to post) by relays

of horses stationed at intervals so that no delay might occur.

The “post”-office used this means of communication, and the horses

were said to travel “post”-haste. To “post” a ledger is to place or

register its several items.

The word “to let” generally means to permit; but in the Bible,

in Shakespeare, and in legal phraseology, it often has the very

opposite meaning. Thus Hamlet says, “I’ll make a ghost of him

that lets me,” that is, interferes with or obstructs me; and in

law books “without let or hindrance” is a phrase of frequent

occurrence. It should be remarked, however, that “to let,” in

the first sense, is from the Saxon, _laetan_; in the second,

from _letjan_. The word “to cleave” may mean either to adhere to

closely, as when Cowper says, “Sophistry cleaves close and protects

sin’s rotten trunk”; or it may mean to split or to rend asunder,

as in the sentence, “He cleaved the stick at one blow.” According

to Mätzner, the word in the first sense is from the Anglo-Saxon,

_cleofan_, _clufan_; in the last sense, it is from _clifan_,

_clifian_. The word “dear” has the two meanings of “prized” because

you have it, and “expensive” because you want it. The word “lee”

has very different acceptations in “lee”-side and “lee”-shore.

The word “mistaken” has quite opposite meanings. “You are mistaken”

may mean “You mistake,” or “You are misunderstood,” or “taken for

somebody else.” In the line

“_Mistaken_ souls that dream of heaven,”

in a popular hymn, the word is used, of course, in the former

sense. The adjective “mortal” means both “deadly” and “liable to

death.” Of the large number of adjectives ending in “able” or

“ible,” some have a subjective and others an objective sense. A

“terrible” sight is one that is able to inspire terror; but a

“readable” book is one which you can read. It is said that the word

“wit” is used in Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” with at least seven

different meanings.

The prefixes “un” and “in” are equivocal. Commonly they have a

negative force, as in “unnecessary,” “incomplete.” But sometimes,

both in verbs and adjectives, they have a positive or intensive

meaning, as in the words “intense,” “infatuated,” “invaluable.”

To “invigorate” one’s physical system by exercise, is not to

lessen, but to increase one’s energy. The verb “unloose” should,

by analogy, signify “to tie,” just as “untie” means “to loose.”

“Inhabitable” should signify “not habitable,” according to the

most frequent use of “in.” To “unravel” means the same as “to

ravel”; to “unrip” the same as “to rip.” Johnson sanctions the

use of the negative prefix in these two words, but Richardson and

Webster condemn it as superfluous. Walton, in his “Angler,” tells

an amusing anecdote touching the two words. “We heard,” he says,

“a high contention amongst the beggars, whether it was easiest to

‘rip’ a cloak or ‘unrip’ a cloak. One beggar affirmed it was all

one; but that was denied, by asking her, if doing and undoing were

all one. Then another said, ’twas easiest to unrip a cloak, for

that was to let it alone; but she was answered by asking how she

could _unrip_ it, if she let it alone.”

This opposition in the meanings of a word is a phenomenon not

altogether peculiar to the English language. In Greek, θοάζειν

has the seemingly contradictory meanings of “to move hastily,”

and “to sit”; χρεία means both “use” and “need”; and λάω means

both “to wish” and “to take.” In Latin, _sacer_ means “set apart”

or “tabooed,” and _unicus_ implies singularity,--_unitas_,

association. Many other examples might be cited to show that “as

rays of light may be reflected and refracted in all possible

ways from the primary direction, so the meaning of a word may be

deflected from its original bearing in a variety of manners; and

consequently we cannot well reach the primitive force of the term

unless we know the precise gradations through which it has gone.”

Several writers on our language have noticed a singular tendency

to limit or narrow the signification of certain words, whose

etymology would suggest a far wider application. Why should we not

“retaliate” (that is, pay back in kind, _res, talis_) kindnesses as

well as injuries? Why should we “resent” (feel again) insults, and

not affectionate words and deeds? Why should our hate, animosity,

hostility, and other bad passions, be “inveterate” (that is, gain

strength by age), but our better feelings, love, kindness, charity,

never? Byron showed a true appreciation of the better uses to which

the word might be put, when he subscribed a letter to a friend,

“Yours inveterately, BYRON.”

In some of our nouns there is a nice distinction of meaning between

the singular and the plural. A “minute” is a fraction of time;

“minutes” are notes of a speech, conversation, etc. The “manner”

in which a man enters a drawing-room may be unexceptionable, while

his “manners” are very bad. When the “Confederates” threatened to

pull down the American “colors” at New Orleans, they did it under

“color” of right. A person was once asked whether a certain lawyer

had got rich by his practice. “No,” was the sarcastic reply, “but

by his practices.”

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Mill’s “Logic.”

[44] Coleridge.

[45] From οὔ and τόπος, “no-place.”