Most persons who have given their attention to the formation of words,
and have employed their leisure in endeavouring to trace them to their
source, must have remarked that there are many words in the English
language which show on the {311} part of learned philologists, the
compilers of dictionaries, either a strange deficiency in reading, or a
want of acquaintance with the older tongues: or perhaps, if we must find
an excuse for them, a habit of "nodding."
The word _awkward_ is one of these. Skinner's account is as follows:
"Ineptus, ἀμφαριστερός, præposterus, ab A.-S. æþerd perversus;
hoc ab _æ_ præp. loquelari negativa privativa, et _weard_,
versus."
Johnson follows Skinner, interpreting _awkward_ in the same way, and with
the same derivation; but unfortunately he had met with the little word
_awk_, and, not caring to inquire into the origin of it, as it seemed so
plain, he explains it as "a barbarous contraction of _awkward_," giving
the following example from L'Estrange:
"We have heard as arrant jingling in the pulpits as the
steeples; and the professors ringing as _awk_ as the bells to
give notice of the conflagration."
Now the real state of the case is, that just as _forward_ and _backward_
are correlatives, so also are _toward_ and _awkward_. We speak of a
_toward_ child as one who is quick and ready and apt; while, by an
_awkward_ one, we mean precisely the contrary. By the former we imply a
disposition or readiness to press on to the mark; by the latter, that
which is averse to it, and fails of the right way. Parallel instances,
though of course not corresponding in meaning, are found in the Latin
_adversus_, _reversus_, _inversus_, _aversus_.
The term _awkward_ is compounded of the two A.-S. words _aweg_ or _awæg_
(which is itself made up of _a_, from, and _wæg_, a way), meaning away,
out: "auferendi vim habet," says Bosworth, of which we have an instance
in _aweg weorpan_, to throw away; and _weard_, toward, as in _hamweard_,
homewards. We thus have the correlatives _to-weard_ and _aweg-weard_,
with the same termination, but with prefixes of exactly opposite
meanings. In the latter word, the prefix would naturally come to be
pronounced as one syllable, and the _g_ as naturally converted into _k_.
The propriety of the use of the word _awkward_ by Shakspeare, in the
Second Part of Henry VI., Act III. Sc. 2., is thus rendered apparent:
"And twice by awkward wind from England's bank,
Drove back again," &c.,
_i.e._ untoward wind, or contrary: an epithet which editors, while they
thought it required an apology, have been unable to explain rightly.
With regard to the word _awk_, I can only say that it is one of very
unfrequent occurrence; I have met with it but once in the course of my
own reading, so that I am unable to confirm my view as fully as I could
wish; still, that one instance seems, as far as it goes, satisfactory
enough: it occurs in Golding's translation of Ovid's _Metam._, London,
1567, fol. 177. p. 2.:
"She sprincled us with bitter jewce of uncouth herbes, and strake
The _awk_ end of her charmed rod uppon our heads, and spake
Woordes to the former contrarie," &c.
The _awk_ end here is, of course, the wrong end, that which was not
_towards_ them.
Perhaps some of the readers of "N. & Q." may have met with other
instances of the usage of the word. It does not occur in Chaucer nor (I
am pretty sure) in Gower.