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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE ROMANCE OF NAMES
"Mr Weekley inspires confidence by his scholarly method of handling
a subject which has been left, for the most part, to the amateur or
the crank."--_Spectator._ THIRD EDITION. 6s. net.
SURNAMES
"Under Professor Weekley's guidance a study of the origin and
significance of surnames becomes full of fascination."--_Truth._
SECOND EDITION. 6s. net.
AN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH
"One knows from experience that Mr Weekley would contrive to avoid
unnecessary dullness even if he was compiling a railway guide, but
that he would also get the trains right."--Mr J. C. SQUIRE in _The
Observer_. Crown 4to. £2. 2s. net.
A CONCISE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH
The abridgment has not involved any diminution in the vocabulary; in
fact, many new words such as _copec_, _fascist_, _insulin_, _rodeo_,
etc., are here registered for the first time. Large Crown 8vo. 7s.
6d. net.
WORDS ANCIENT AND MODERN
"We cordially recommend to the discriminating reader a book
altogether fresh, amusing and delightful."--_Morning Post._ Second
Impression. 5s. net.
_All rights reserved_
THE ROMANCE OF
WORDS
BY ERNEST WEEKLEY, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH AND HEAD OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE
DEPARTMENT AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM; SOMETIME
SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AUTHOR OF "THE
ROMANCE OF NAMES," "SURNAMES"
"Vous savez le latin, sans doute?"--
"Oui, mais faites comme si je ne le savais pas."
(MOLIÈRE, _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, ii. 6.)
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
FIRST EDITION MARCH 1912
_Reprinted_ JUNE 1912
SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED NOVEMBER 1913
THIRD EDITION MAY 1917
FOURTH EDITION JANUARY 1922
_Reprinted_ FEBRUARY 1925
_Reprinted_ JANUARY 1927
PREFACE
A long and somewhat varied experience in language teaching has convinced
me that there are still, in spite of the march of science, many people
who are capable of getting intellectual pleasure from word-history. I
hope that to such people this little book, the amusement of occasional
leisure, will not be unwelcome. It differs, I believe, from any other
popular book on language in that it deals essentially with the origins
of words, and makes no attempt to enforce a moral. My aim has been to
select especially the unexpected in etymology, "things not generally
known," such as the fact that _Tammany_ was an Indian chief, that
_assegai_ occurs in Chaucer, that _jilt_ is identical with _Juliet_,
that _brazil_ wood is not named from _Brazil_, that to _curry favour_
means to comb down a horse of a particular colour, and so forth. The
treatment is made as simple as possible, a bowing acquaintance with
Latin and French being all that is assumed, though words from many other
languages are necessarily included. In the case of each word I have
traced the history just so far back as it is likely to be of interest to
the reader who is not a philological specialist.
I have endeavoured to state each proposition in its simplest terms,
without enumerating all the reservations and indirect factors which
belong to the history of almost every word.
The chapter headings only indicate in a general way the division of the
subject matter, the arrangement of which has been determined rather by
the natural association which exists between words. The quotations are,
with few exceptions, drawn from my own reading. They come from very
varied sources, but archaic words are exemplified, when possible, from
authors easily accessible, generally Shakespeare or Milton, or, for
revived archaisms, Scott. In illustrating obsolete meanings I have made
much use of the earliest dictionaries[1] available.
It seemed undesirable to load a small work of this kind with references.
The writer on word-lore must of necessity build on what has already been
done, happy if he can add a few bricks to the edifice. But philologists
will recognise that this book is not, in the etymological sense, a mere
compilation,[2] and that a considerable portion of the information it
contains is here printed for the first time in a form accessible to the
general reader.[3] Chapter VII., on Semantics, is, so far as I know, the
first attempt at a simple treatment of a science which is now admitted
to an equality with phonetics, and which to most people is much more
interesting.
Throughout I have used the _New English Dictionary_, in the etymological
part of which I have for some years had a humble share, for purposes of
verification. Without the materials furnished by the historical method
of that great national work, which is now complete from A to R, this
book would not have been attempted. For words in S to Z, I have referred
chiefly to Professor Skeat's _Etymological Dictionary_ (4th ed., Oxford,
1910).
It is not many years since what passed for etymology in this country was
merely a congeries of wild guesses and manufactured anecdotes. The
persistence with which these crop up in the daily paper and the
class-room must be my excuse for "slaying the slain" in Chapter XIII.
Some readers may regret the disappearance of these fables, but a little
study will convince them that in the life of words, as in that of men,
truth is stranger than fiction.
ERNEST WEEKLEY.
_NOTTINGHAM, January 1912._
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
On its first publication this little book was very kindly treated by
both reviewers and readers. The only criticism of any importance was
directed against its conciseness. There seemed to be a consensus of
expert opinion that, the book being intended for the non-specialist, the
compression was a little too severe, and likely sometimes to lead to
misunderstanding. I have tried to remedy this defect in the present
edition, both by giving fuller explanations and by supplying further
quotations in illustration of the less common words and uses. No
absolutely new matter is introduced, but a number of fresh words have
been added as examples of points already noticed. The general
arrangement of the book remains unchanged, except that a few paragraphs
have been shifted to what seemed more natural positions.
Friendly correspondents in all parts of the world, to many of whom I
must apologise for my failure to answer their letters, have sent me
information of interest and value. In some cases I have been able to
make use of such information for this edition. Many readers have called
my attention to local and American survivals of words and meanings
described as obsolete. This is a subject on which a great deal could be
written, but it lies outside the plan of this book, which does not
aspire to do more than furnish some instruction or entertainment to
those who are interested in the curiosities of etymology.
ERNEST WEEKLEY.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
It is just five years since this little book was first submitted to the
toleration of word-lovers, a class much more numerous than the author
had suspected. The second edition, revised and slightly enlarged,
appeared in 1913. Since then the text has once more been subjected to a
searching revision, and it is hoped that the book now contains no
statement which is not in accord with common sense and the present state
of philological knowledge. Only those who have experience of such work
know how easy it is to stray unconsciously from the exact truth in
publishing the results of etymological research. Moreover, new light is
constantly being thrown on old problems, and theories long triumphant
have occasionally to yield to fresh evidence. To take an example from
this volume, the traditional derivation of _trousers_ from French
_trousse_ is now shown by the _New English Dictionary_ to be
chronologically improbable. That great and cautious work unhesitatingly
describes _hatchment_ as a corruption of _achievement_, but Professor
Derocquigny, of Lille, has shown (_Modern Language Review_, January
1913) that this etymology is "preposterous," _hachement_ being a good
old French word which in 16th century English was ignorantly confused
with _achievement_. Apart from these two etymologies,[4] the only
essential alterations have been made in the chapter on Surnames (p.
170), further research in medieval records having convinced the author
that most of what has been written about "corrupted" surnames is
nonsense, and that no nickname is too fantastic to be genuine.[5] Two
slight contemplated alterations have not been carried out. The adjective
applied (p. 156) to a contemporary ruler seemed to need reconsideration,
but the author was baffled by the _embarras du choix_. A word mentioned
on p. 48 might gracefully have been omitted, but it is likely that the
illustrious man alluded to would, if the page should ever accidentally
meet his eye, only chuckle at the thought of time's revenges.
In the interval since the last edition of the _Romance of Words_ the
greatest _Romance of Deeds_ in our story has been written in the blood
of our noblest and best. Only a sense of proportion withholds the
author from dedicating this new edition to the glorious memory of his
many old pupils dead on the field of honour. Nothing in the modest
success of the book has given him so much pleasure as the fact, to which
his correspondence bears witness, that his little contribution to
word-lore has helped to amuse the convalescence of more than one
stricken fighting-man.
ERNEST WEEKLEY.
_NOTTINGHAM, March 1917._
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
In preparing a new edition of this little book, ten years after its
first appearance, I have corrected a few slight inaccuracies which had
been overlooked in earlier revisions, and modified or expanded some
statements which were not quite consonant with the present state of
etymological knowledge. In word-lore, as in other sciences, it is seldom
safe to lay down the law without a little conscientious "hedging." The
only two considerable alterations have to do with the word
_snickersnee_, the history of which is now clearly traced, and the name
_Bendigo_. It is rather strange that no reader or reviewer has ever put
me right on the subject of this Nottingham worthy, for the facts are
plainly stated in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.
ERNEST WEEKLEY.
_NOTTINGHAM, January 1922._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For a list of these see p. xii.
[2] _Compilatio_, "pillage, polling, robbing" (Cooper).
[3] Among words on which the reader will find either entirely new
information or a modification of generally accepted views are _akimbo_,
_anlace_, _branks_, _caulk_, _cockney_, _felon_ (a whitlow), _foil_,
_kestrel_, _lugger_, _mulligrubs_, _mystery_ (a craft), _oriel_,
_patch_, _petronel_, _salet_, _sentry_, _sullen_, _tret_, etc.
[4] In spite of the fact that the _New English Dictionary_ now finds
_shark_ applied to the fish some years before the first record of
_shark_, a sharper, parasite, I adhere to my belief that the latter is
the earlier sense. The new example quoted, from a Tudor "broadside," is
more suggestive of a sailor's apt nickname than of zoological
nomenclature--"There is no proper name for it that I knowe, but that
sertayne men of Captayne Haukinses doth call it a _sharke_" (1569).
[5] See the author's _Surnames_ (John Murray, 1916), especially pp.
177-83.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. OUR VOCABULARY 1
II. WANDERINGS OF WORDS 17
III. WORDS OF POPULAR MANUFACTURE 29
IV. WORDS AND PLACES 47
V. PHONETIC ACCIDENTS 54
VI. WORDS AND MEANINGS 72
VII. SEMANTICS 86
VIII. METAPHOR 105
IX. FOLK-ETYMOLOGY 113
X. DOUBLETS 139
XI. HOMONYMS 155
XII. FAMILY NAMES 169
XIII. ETYMOLOGICAL FACT AND FICTION 184
INDEX 205
The following dictionaries are quoted without further reference:--
Palsgrave, French and English (1530).
Cooper, Latin and English (1573).
Percyvall, Spanish and English (1591).
Florio, Italian and English (1598).
Cotgrave, French and English (1611).
Torriano, Italian and English (1659).
Hexham, Dutch and English (1660).
Ludwig, German and English (1716).
THE ROMANCE OF WORDS
CHAPTER I
OUR VOCABULARY
The bulk of our literary language is Latin, and consists of words either
borrowed directly or taken from "learned" French forms. The every-day
vocabulary of the less educated is of Old English, commonly called
Anglo-Saxon, origin; and from the same source comes what we may call the
machinery of the language, _i.e._, its inflexions, numerals, pronouns,
prepositions, and conjunctions. Along with Anglo-Saxon, we find a
considerable number of words from the related Norse languages, this
element being naturally strongest in the dialects of the north and east
of England. The third great element of our working vocabulary is
furnished by Old French, _i.e._, the language naturally developed from
the spoken Latin of the Roman soldiers and colonists, generally called
Vulgar Latin. To its composite character English owes its unequalled
richness in expression. For most ideas we have three separate terms, or
groups of terms, which, often starting from the same metaphor, serve to
express different shades of meaning. Thus a deed done with malice
_prepense_ (an Old French compound from Lat. _pensare_, to weigh), is
_deliberate_ or _pondered_, both Latin words which mean literally
"weighed"; but the four words convey four distinct shades of meaning.
The Gk. _sympathy_ is Lat. _compassion_, rendered in English by
_fellow-feeling_.
Sometimes a native word has been completely supplanted by a loan word,
_e.g._, Anglo-Sax. _here_, army (_cf._ Ger. _Heer_), gave way to Old Fr.
_(h)ost_ (p. 158). This in its turn was replaced by _army_, Fr. _armée_,
which, like its Spanish doublet _armada_, is really a feminine past
participle with some word for host, band, etc., understood. _Here_ has
survived in _Hereford_, _harbour_ (p. 164), _harbinger_ (p. 90), etc.,
and in the verb _harry_ (_cf._ Ger. _verheeren_, to harry).
Or a native word may persist in some special sense, e.g., _weed_, a
general term for garment in Shakespeare--
"And there the snake throws her enamel'd skin,
_Weed_ wide enough to wrap a fairy in."
(_Midsummer Night's Dream_, ii. 2.)
survives in "widow's _weeds_." _Chare_, a turn of work--
"the maid that milks
And does the meanest _chares_."
(_Antony and Cleopatra_, iv. 15.)
has given us _charwoman_, and persists as American _chore_--
"Sharlee was ... concluding the post-prandial _chores_."
(H. S. HARRISON, _Queed_, Ch. 17.)
_Sake_, cognate with Ger. _Sache_, thing, cause, and originally meaning
a contention at law, has been replaced by _cause_, except in phrases
beginning with the preposition _for_. See also _bead_ (p. 74).
_Unkempt_, uncombed, and _uncouth_, unknown, are fossil remains of
obsolete verb forms.
In addition to these main constituents of our language, we have borrowed
words, sometimes in considerable numbers, sometimes singly and
accidentally, from almost every tongue known to mankind, and every year
sees new words added to our vocabulary. The following chapters deal
especially with words borrowed from Old French and from the other
Romance languages, their origins and journeyings, and the various
accidents that have befallen them in English. It is in such words as
these that the romance of language is best exemplified, because we can
usually trace their history from Latin to modern English, while the
earlier history of Anglo-Saxon words is a matter for the philologist.
[Page Heading: LATIN WORDS]
Words borrowed directly from Latin or Greek lack this intermediate
experience, though the study of their original meanings is full of
surprises. This, however, is merely a question of opening a Latin or
Greek dictionary, if we have not time for the moment's reflexion which
would serve the same purpose. Thus, to take a dozen examples at random,
to _abominate_[6] is to turn shuddering from the evil _omen_, a
_generous_ man is a man of "race" (_genus_), an _innuendo_ can be
conveyed "by nodding," to _insult_ is to "jump on," a _legend_ is
something "to be read," a _manual_ is a "hand-book," an _obligation_ is
essentially "binding," to _relent_ is to "go slow," _rivals_ are people
living by the same "stream"[7] (_rivus_), a _salary_ is an allowance for
"salt" (_sal_), a _supercilious_ man is fond of lifting his "eyebrows"
(_supercilium_), and a _trivial_ matter is so commonplace that it can be
picked up at the meeting of "three ways" (_trivium_). _Dexterity_
implies skill with the "right" hand (_dexter_), while _sinister_
preserves the superstition of the ill-omened "left."
It may be remarked here that the number of Latin words used in their
unaltered form in every-day English is larger than is generally
realised. Besides such phrases as _bona-fide_, _post-mortem_,
_viva-voce_, or such abbreviations as A.M., _ante meridiem_, D.V., _Deo
volente_, and L. s. d., for _libræ_, _solidi_, _denarii_, we have,
without including scientific terms, many Latin nouns, e.g., _animal_,
_genius_, _index_, _odium_, _omen_, _premium_, _radius_, _scintilla_,
_stimulus_, _tribunal_, and adjectives, e.g., _complex_, _lucifer_,
_miser_, _pauper_, _maximum_, _senior_, and the ungrammatical _bonus_.
The Lat. _veto_, I forbid, has been worked hard of late. The stage has
given us _exit_, he goes out, and the Universities _exeat_, let him go
out, while law language contains a number of Latin verb forms, e.g.,
_affidavit_ (late Latin), he has testified, _caveat_, let him beware,
_cognovit_, he has recognised--
"You gave them a _cognovit_ for the amount of your costs after the
trial, I'm told."
(_Pickwick_, Ch. 46.)
due to the initial words of certain documents. Similarly _item_, also,
is the first word in each paragraph of an inventory. With this we may
compare the _purview_ of a statute, from the Old Fr. _pourveu_
(_pourvu_), provided, with which it used to begin. A _tenet_ is what one
"holds." _Fiat_ means "let it be done." When Mr Weller lamented--
"Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a _alleybi_?"
(_Pickwick_, Ch. 34.)
it is safe to say that he was not consciously using the Latin adverb
_alibi_, elsewhere, nor is the printer who puts in a _viz._ always aware
that this is an old abbreviation for _videlicet_, i.e., _videre licet_,
it is permissible to see. A _nostrum_ is "our" unfailing remedy, and
_tandem_, at length, instead of side by side, is a university joke.
[Page Heading: INFLECTED LATIN FORMS]
Sometimes we have inflected forms of Latin words. A _rebus_[8] is a word
or phrase represented "by things." _Requiem_, accusative of _requies_,
rest, is the first word of the introit used in the mass for the dead--
"_Requiem_ æternam dona eis, Domine,"
while _dirge_ is the Latin imperative _dirige_, from the antiphon in the
same service--
"_Dirige_, Domine meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam."
The spelling _dirige_ was once common--
"Also I byqwethe to eche of the paryshe prystys beying at my
_dyryge_ and masse xiid."
(Will of John Perfay, of Bury St. Edmunds, 1509.)
_Query_ was formerly written _quære_, seek, and _plaudit_ is for
_plaudite_, clap your hands, the appeal of the Roman actors to the
audience at the conclusion of the play--
"Nunc, spectatores, Iovis summi causa clare _plaudite_."
(PLAUTUS, _Amphitruo_.)
_Debenture_ is for _debentur_, there are owing. _Dominie_ is the Latin
vocative _domine_, formerly used by schoolboys in addressing their
master, while _pandy_, a stroke on the hand with a cane, is from _pande
palmam_, hold out your hand. _Parse_ is the Lat. _pars_, occurring in
the question _Quæ pars orationis?_ What part of speech? _Omnibus_, for
all, is a dative plural. _Limbo_ is the ablative of Lat. _limbus_, an
edge, hem, in the phrase "in _limbo_ patrum," where _limbus_ is used for
the abode of the Old Testament saints on the verge of Hades. It is
already jocular in Shakespeare--
"I have some of 'em in _limbo_ patrum, and there they are like to
dance these three days."
(_Henry VIII._, v. 3.)
_Folio_, _quarto_, etc., are ablatives, from the phrases _in folio_, _in
quarto_, etc., still used in French. _Premises_, earlier _premisses_, is
a slightly disguised Lat. _præmissas_, the aforesaid, lit. sent before,
used in deeds to avoid repeating the full description of a property. It
is thus the same word as logical _premisses_, or assumptions. _Quorum_
is from a legal formula giving a list of persons "of whom" a certain
number must be present. A _teetotum_ is so called because it has, or
once had, on one of its sides, a _T_ standing for _totum_, all. It was
also called simply a _totum_. The other three sides also bore letters to
indicate what share, if any, of the stake they represented. Cotgrave has
_totum_ (_toton_), "a kind of game with a whirle-bone." In spite of the
interesting anecdote about the temperance orator with an impediment in
his speech, it was probably _teetotum_ that suggested _teetotaller_.
We have also a few words straight from Greek, e.g., _analysis_, _aroma_,
_atlas_, the world-sustaining demi-god whose picture used to decorate
map-books, _colon_, _comma_, _dogma_, _epitome_, _miasma_, _nausea_, Gk.
{nausia}, lit. sea-sickness, _nectar_, whence the fruit called a
_nectarine_--
"_Nectarine_ fruits which the compliant boughs
Yielded them, sidelong as they sat recline."
(_Paradise Lost_, iv. 332.)
_pathos_, _python_, _pyx_, _synopsis_, etc.; but most of our Greek words
have passed through French _via_ Latin, or are newly manufactured
scientific terms, often most unscientifically constructed.
_Gamut_ contains the Gk. _gamma_ and the Latin conjunction _ut_. Guy
d'Arezzo, who flourished in the 11th century, is said to have introduced
the method of indicating the notes by the letters _a_ to _g_. For the
note below _a_ he used the Gk. _gamma_. To him is attributed also the
series of monosyllables by which the notes are also indicated. They are
supposed to be taken from a Latin hymn to St John--
_Ut_ queant laxis _re_sonare fibris
_Mi_ra gestorum _fa_muli tuorum
_Sol_ve polluti _la_bii reatum
_S_ancte _I_ohannes.
_Do_ is sometimes substituted for _ut_ in French, and always in modern
English.
[Page Heading: FRENCH DIALECTS]
In considering the Old French element in English, one has to bear in
mind a few elementary philological facts. Nearly all French nouns and
adjectives are derived from the accusative. I give, for simplicity, the
nominative, adding the stem in the case of imparisyllabic words. The
foundation of French is Vulgar Latin, which differs considerably from
that we study at school. I only give Vulgar Latin forms where it cannot
be avoided. For instance, in dealing with _culverin_ (p. 38), I connect
Fr. _couleuvre_, adder, with Lat. _cól[)u]ber_, a snake. Every Romance
philologist knows that it must represent Vulgar Lat. _*colóbra_; but
this form, which, being conjectural, is marked with an asterisk, had
better be forgotten by the general reader.
Our modern English words often preserve a French form which no longer
exists, or they are taken from dialects, especially those of Normandy
and Picardy, which differ greatly from that of Paris. The word _caudle_
illustrates both these points. It is the same word as modern Fr.
_chaudeau_, "a _caudle_; or, warme broth" (Cotgrave), but it preserves
the Old French[9] _-el_ for _-eau_, and the Picard _c-_ for _ch-_. An
uncomfortable bridle which used to be employed to silence scolds was
called the _branks_. It is a Scottish word, originally applied to a
bridle improvised from a halter with a wooden "cheek" each side to
prevent it from slipping--
"And then its shanks,
They were as thin, as sharp and sma'
As cheeks o' _branks_."
(BURNS, _Death and Doctor Hornbook_, vii. 4.)
These cheeks correspond to the two parallel levers called the "branches"
of a bridle, and _brank_ is the Norman _branque_, branch. All the
meanings of _patch_ answer to those of Fr. _pièce_. It comes from the
Old French dialect form _peche_, as _match_ comes from _mèche_, and
_cratch_, a manger, from _crèche_, of German origin, and ultimately the
same word as _crib_. _Cratch_ is now replaced, except in dialect, by
_manger_, Fr. _mangeoire_, from _manger_, to eat, but it was the regular
word in Mid. English--
"Sche childide her firste born sone, and wlappide him in clothis,
and puttide in a _cracche_."
(WYCLIF, _Luke_, ii. 7.)
_Pew_ is from Old Fr. _puy_, a stage, eminence, Lat. _podium_, which
survives in _Puy de Dôme_, the mountain in Auvergne on which Pascal made
his experiments with the barometer. _Dupuy_ is a common family name in
France, but the _Depews_ of the West Indies have kept the older
pronunciation.
Many Old French words which live on in England are obsolete in France.
_Chime_ is Old Fr. _chimbe_ from Greco-Lat. _cymbalum_. Minsheu (1617)
derived _dismal_ from Lat. _dies mali_, evil days. This, says Trench,
"is exactly one of those plausible etymologies which one learns after a
while to reject with contempt." But Minsheu is substantially right, if
we substitute Old Fr. _dis mal_, which is found as early as 1256. Old
Fr. _di_, a day, also survives in the names of the days of the week,
_lundi_, etc. In _remainder_ and _remnant_ we have the infinitive and
present participle of an obsolete Old French verb derived from Lat.
_reman[=e]re_. _Manor_ and _power_ are also Old French infinitives, the
first now only used as a noun (_manoir_), the second represented by
_pouvoir_. _Misnomer_ is the Anglo-French infinitive, "to misname."
[Page Heading: INFLECTED FRENCH FORMS]
In some cases we have preserved meanings now obsolete in French.
_Trump_, in cards, is Fr. _triomphe_, "the card game called ruffe, or
_trump_; also, the ruffe, or _trump_ at it" (Cotgrave), but the modern
French word for trump is _atout_, to all. _Rappee_ is for obsolete Fr.
(tabac) _râpé_, pulverised, rasped. Fr. _talon_, heel, from Vulgar Lat.
_*talo_, _talon-_, for _talus_, was applied by falconers to the heel
claw of the hawk. This meaning, obsolete in French, has persisted in
English. The _mizen_ mast is the rearmost of three, but the Fr. _mât de
misaine_ is the fore-mast, and both come from Ital. _mezzana_ middle,
"also the poop or _mizensail_[10] in a ship" (Torriano).
As in the case of Latin, we have some inflected French forms in English.
_Lampoon_ is from the archaic Fr. _lampon_, "a drunken song" (Miège,
_French Dict._, 1688). This is coined from the imperative _lampons_, let
us drink, regularly used as a refrain in seditious and satirical songs.
For the formation we may compare American _vamose_, to skedaddle, from
Span. _vamos_, let us go. The military _revelly_ is the French
imperative _réveillez_, wake up, but in the French army it is called the
_diane_. The _gist_ of a matter is the point in which its importance
really "lies." _Ci-gît_, for Old Fr. _ci-gist_, Lat. _jacet_, here lies,
is seen on old tombstones. _Tennis_, says Minsheu, is so called from Fr.
_tenez_, hold, "which word the Frenchmen, the onely tennis-players, use
to speake when they strike the ball." This etymology, for a long time
regarded as a wild guess, has been shewn by recent research to be most
probably correct. The game is of French origin, and it was played by
French knights in Italy a century before we find it alluded to by Gower
(c. 1400). Erasmus tells us that the server called out _accipe_, to
which his opponent replied _mitte_, and as French, and not Latin, was
certainly the language of the earliest tennis-players, we may infer that
the spectators named the game from the foreign word with which each
service began. In French the game is called _paume_, palm of the hand;
cf. _fives_, also a slang name for the hand. The archaic _assoil_--
"And the holy man he _assoil'd_ us, and sadly we sail'd away."
(TENNYSON, _Voyage of Maeldune_, xi. 12.)
is the present subjunctive of the Old Fr. _asoldre_ (_absoudre_), to
absolve, used in the stereotyped phrase _Dieus asoile_, may God absolve.
A linguistic invasion such as that of English by Old French is almost
unparalleled. We have instances of the expulsion of one tongue by
another, _e.g._, of the Celtic dialects of Gaul by Latin and of those of
Britain by Anglo-Saxon. But a real blending of two languages can only
occur when a large section of the population is bilingual for centuries.
This, as we know, was the case in England. The Norman dialect, already
familiar through inevitable intercourse, was transplanted to England in
1066. It developed further on its own lines into Anglo-Norman, and then,
mixed with other French dialects, for not all the invaders were Normans,
and political events brought various French provinces into relation with
England, it produced Anglo-French, a somewhat barbarous tongue which was
the official language till 1362, and with which our legal jargon is
saturated. We find in Anglo-French many words which are unrecorded in
continental Old French, among them one which we like to think of as
essentially English, viz., _dueté_, duty, an abstract formed from the
past participle of Fr. _devoir_. This verb has also given us
_endeavour_, due to the phrase _se mettre en devoir_--
"Je me suis _en debvoir_ mis pour moderer sa cholere tyrannicque."[11]
(_Rabelais_, i. 29.)
[Page Heading: NEOLOGISMS]
No dictionary can keep up with the growth of a language. The _New
English Dictionary_ had done the letter _C_ before the _cinematograph_
arrived, but got it in under _K_. Words of this kind are manufactured in
such numbers that the lexicographer is inclined to wait and see whether
they will catch on. In such cases it is hard to prophesy. The population
of this country may be divided into those people who have been operated
for _appendicitis_ and those who are going to be. Yet this word was
considered too rare and obscure for insertion in the first volume of the
_New English Dictionary_ (1888), the greatest word-book that has ever
been projected. _Sabotage_ looks, unfortunately, as if it had come to
stay. It is a derivative of _saboter_, to scamp work, from _sabot_, a
wooden shoe, used contemptuously of an inferior article. The great
French dictionaries do not know it in its latest sense of malicious
damage done by strikers, and the _New English Dictionary_, which
finished _Sa-_ in the year 1912, just missed it. _Hooligan_ is not
recorded by the _New English Dictionary_. The original _Hooligans_ were
a spirited Irish family of that name whose proceedings enlivened the
drab monotony of life in Southwark towards the end of the 19th century.
The word is younger than the Australian _larrikin_, of doubtful origin
(see p. 190), but older than Fr. _apache_. The adoption of the Red
Indian name _Apache_ for a modern Parisian bravo is a curious parallel
to the 18th-century use of _Mohock_ (Mohawk) for an aristocratic London
ruffler.
_Heckle_ is first recorded in its political sense for 1880. The _New
English Dictionary_ quotes it from _Punch_ in connection with the Fourth
Party. In Scottish, however, it is old in this sense, so that it is an
example of a dialect word that has risen late in life. Its southern form
_hatchell_ is common in Mid. English in its proper sense of "teasing"
hemp or flax, and the metaphor is exactly the same. _Tease_, earlier
_toose_, means to pluck or pull to pieces, hence the name _teasel_ for
the thistle used by wool-carders. The older form is seen in the
derivative _tousle_, the family name _Tozer_, and the dog's name
_Towser_. _Feckless_, a common Scottish word, was hardly literary
English before Carlyle. It is now quite familiar--
"Thriftless, shiftless, _feckless_."
(Mr LLOYD GEORGE, 1st Nov. 1911.)
There is a certain appropriateness in the fact that almost the first
writer to use it was James I. It is for _effectless_. I never heard of a
_week-end_ till I paid a visit to Lancashire in 1883. It has long since
invaded the whole island. An old _geezer_ has a modern sound, but it is
the medieval _guiser_, _guisard_, mummer, which has persisted in dialect
and re-entered the language.
[Page Heading: WORDS DUE TO ACCIDENT]
The fortunes of a word are sometimes determined by accident. _Glamour_
(see p. 145) was popularised by Scott, who found it in old ballad
literature. _Grail_, the holy dish at the Last Supper, would be much
less familiar but for Tennyson. _Mascot_, from a Provençal word meaning
sorcerer, dates from Audran's operetta _La Mascotte_ (1880). _Jingo_
first appears in conjurors' jargon of the 17th century. It has been
conjectured to represent Basque _jinko_, God, picked up by sailors. If
this is the case, it is probably the only pure Basque word in English.
The Ingoldsby derivation from St Gengulphus--
"Sometimes styled 'The Living _Jingo_,' from the great tenaciousness
of vitality exhibited by his severed members,"
is of course a joke. In 1878, when war with Russia seemed imminent, a
music-hall singer, the Great Macdermott, delighted large audiences
with--
"We don't want to fight, but, by _Jingo_, if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too."
Hence the name _jingo_ applied to that ultra-patriotic section of the
population which, in war-time, attends to the shouting.[12] Fr.
_chauvin_, a jingo, is the name of a real Napoleonic veteran introduced
into Scribe's play _Le Soldat Laboureur_. _Barracking_ is known to us
only through the visits of English cricket teams to Australia. It is
said to come from a native Australian word meaning derision. The
American _caucus_ was first applied (1878) by Lord Beaconsfield to the
Birmingham Six Hundred. In 18th-century American it means meeting or
discussion. It is probably connected with a North American Indian
(Algonkin) word meaning counsellor, an etymology supported by that of
_pow-wow_, a palaver or confab, which is the Algonkin for a
medicine-man. With these words may be mentioned _Tammany_, now used of a
famous political body, but, in the 18th century, of a society named
after the "tutelar saint" of Pennsylvania. The original Tammany was an
Indian chief with whom William Penn negotiated for grants of land about
the end of the 17th century. _Littoral_ first became familiar in
connection with Italy's ill-starred Abyssinian adventure, and
_hinterland_ marked the appearance of Germany as a colonial power--
"'Let us glance a moment,' said Mr Queed, 'at Man, as we see him
first emerging from the dark _hinterlands_ of history.'"
(H. S. HARRISON, _Queed_, Ch. 17.)
[Page Heading: BLUNDERS]
Sometimes the blunder of a great writer has enriched the language.
Scott's _bartisan_--
"Its varying circle did combine
Bulwark, and _bartisan_, and line
And bastion, tower ..."
(_Marmion_, vi. 2.)
is a mistake for _bratticing_, timber-work, a word of obscure origin of
which several corruptions are found in early Scottish. It is rather a
favourite with writers of "sword and feather" novels. Other sham
antiques are _slug-horn_, Chatterton's absurd perversion of the Gaelic
_slogan_, war-cry, copied by Browning--
"Dauntless the _slug-horn_ to my lips I set,
And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"
and Scott's extraordinary misuse of _warison_, security, a doublet of
_garrison_, as though it meant "war sound"--
"Or straight they sound their _warison_,
And storm and spoil thy garrison."
(_Lay_, iv. 21.)
Scott also gave currency to _niddering_, a coward--
"Faithless, mansworn,[13] and _niddering_."
(_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 42.)
which has been copied by Lytton and Kingsley, and elaborated into
_nidderling_ by Mr Crockett. It is a misprint in an early edition of
William of Malmesbury for _niding_ or _nithing_, cognate with Ger.
_Neid_, envy. This word, says Camden, is mightier than _Abracadabra_,[14]
since--
"It hath levied armies and subdued rebellious enemies. For when
there was a dangerous rebellion against King William Rufus, and
Rochester Castle, then the most important and strongest fort of this
realm, was stoutly kept against him, after that he had but
proclaimed that his subjects should repair thither to his camp, upon
no other penalty, but that whosoever should refuse to come should be
reputed a _niding_, they swarmed to him immediately from all sides
in such numbers that he had in a few days an infinite army, and the
rebels therewith were so terrified that they forthwith yielded."
(_Remains concerning Britain._)
_Derring-do_ is used several times by Spenser, who explains it as
"manhood and chevalrie." It is due to his misunderstanding of a passage
in Lidgate, in which it is an imitation of Chaucer, complicated by a
misprint. Scott took it from Spenser--
"'Singular,' he again muttered to himself, 'if there be two who can
do a deed of such _derring-do_.'"
(_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 29.)
and from him it passed to Bulwer Lytton and later writers.
Such words as these, the illegitimate offspring of genius, are to be
distinguished from the "ghost-words" which dimly haunt the dictionaries
without ever having lived (see p. 201). Speaking generally, we may say
that no word is ever created _de novo_. The names invented for
commercial purposes are not exceptions to this law. _Bovril_ is
compounded of Lat. _bos_, ox, and _vril_,[15] the mysterious power which
plays so important a part in Lytton's _Coming Race_, while _Tono-Bungay_
suggests _tonic_. The only exception to this is _gas_, the arbitrary
coinage of the Belgian chemist Van Helmont in the 17th century. But even
this is hardly a new creation, because we have Van Helmont's own
statement that the word _chaos_ was vaguely present to his mind.
_Chortle_ has, however, secured a limited currency, and is admitted by
the _New English Dictionary_--
"O frabjous day! Callooh! callay!
He _chortled_ in his joy."
(_Through the Looking-Glass._)
and, though an accurate account of the _boojum_ is lacking, most people
know it to be a dangerous variety of _snark_.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] _Abominable_ is regularly spelt _abhominable_ in late Old French and
Mid. English, as though meaning "inhuman," Lat. _homo_, _homin-_, a man.
[7] This etymology is doubted by some authorities.
[8] But the word comes to us from French. In the 16th century such
puzzles were called _rébus de Picardie_, because of their popularity in
that province.
[9] For simplicity the term Old French is used here to include all words
not in modern use. Where a modern form exists it is given in
parentheses.
[10] The name was thus applied to a sail before it was given to a mast.
Although the Italian word means "middle," it is perhaps, in this
particular sense, a popular corruption of an Arabic word of quite
different meaning. The discussion of so difficult a problem is rather
out of place in a book intended for the general reader, but I cannot
refrain from giving a most interesting note which I owe to Mr W. B.
Whall, Master Mariner, the author of _Shakespeare's Sea Terms
Explained_--"The sail was (until c. 1780) lateen, _i.e._, triangular,
like the sail of a galley. The Saracens, or Moors, were the great galley
sailors of the Mediterranean, and _mizen_ comes from Arab., _miezên_,
balance. The _mizen_ is, even now, a sail that 'balances,' and the reef
in a mizen is still called the 'balance' reef."
[11] "I have _endeavoured_ to moderate his tyrannical choler"
(Urquhart's Translation, 1653).
[12] The credit of first using the word in the political sense is
claimed both for George Jacob Holyoake and Professor Minto.
[13] From Anglo-Sax. _m[=a]n_, deceit, cognate with the first syllable
of Ger. _Meineid_, perjury.
[14] This word, which looks like an unsuccessful palindrome, belongs to
the language of medieval magic. It seems to be artificially elaborated
from {abraxas}, a word of Persian origin used by a sect of Greek
gnostics. Its letters make up the magic number 365, supposed to
represent the number of spirits subject to the supreme being.
[15] In coining _vril_ Lytton probably had in mind Lat. _vis_, _vires_,
power, or the adjective _virilis_.