To _garble_, to cleanse from dross and dirt, as grocers do
their spices, to pick or cull out.--PHILLIPS, _New World of
Words_.
=GARLAND.= At present we know no other ‘garlands’ but of flowers; but
‘garland’ was at one time a technical name for the royal crown or
diadem, and not a poetical one, as might at first sight appear; as
witness these words of Matthew of Paris in his _Life of Henry III._:
Rex veste deauratâ, et coronulâ aureâ, quæ vulgariter _garlanda_
dicitur, redimitus.
In the adoption and obtaining of the _garland_, I being seduced
and provoked by sinister counsel did commit a naughty and
abominable act.--GRAFTON, _Chronicle of King Richard III._
In whose [Edward the Fourth’s] time, and by whose occasion,
what about the getting of the _garland_, keeping it, losing and
winning again, it hath cost more English blood than hath twice
the winning of France.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard
III._ p. 107.
What in me was purchased,
Falls unto thee in a more fairer sort;
So now the _garland_ wear’st successively.
SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry IV._ act iv. sc. 4.
=GARRET.= The Old French ‘garite,’ which is our ‘garret,’ is properly
a place of refuge or safety, being derived from the verb ‘garir;’
thus ‘gagner la guérite,’ to save oneself by flight. But this place
of safety would be often on a high wall, in a watch-tower, upon the
tops of houses; and thus the notion of the ‘garret’ was connected with
that of the highest stage or storey. The subaudition of its being
the poorest and meanest place in the house is an afterthought, and
certainly has no place in any of the following uses of the word.
Thanne walkede y ferrer, and went al abouten,
And seigh halles full hyghe, and houses ful noble
With gaie _garites_ and grete, and iche hole y-glased.
_Peres the Plowman’s Crede_, l. 214 (Skeat).
The _garettes_ aboven the ghates bryght
Of the ceté of heven, I lyken thus ryght
Tylle the _garettes_ of a ceté of gold,
That wroght war als I before told.
RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 9101-9104.
It is nat possible algate to have highe _garettes_, or toures,
or highe places for watche men; therefor it nedethe to have out
watche.--VEGETIUS, quoted in Way’s _Promptorium_, p. 187.
=GAZETTE.= The French form of an Italian word ‘gazzetta,’ designating a
small piece of tin money current at Venice, of the value of less than
a farthing (see Florio). This word ‘gazzetta’ may possibly be quite
distinct in origin from ‘gazzetta,’ the name of a monthly bill of news
printed commonly at Venice (see Skeat’s _Dictionary_). We see the word
in this latter sense, but not as yet thoroughly at home in English, for
it still retains [as it retained much later] an Italian termination, in
Ben Jonson’s _Volpone_ (act v. sc. 2), of which the scene is laid at
Venice. Curiously enough the same play gives also an example, quoted
below, of ‘gazette’ in the sense of a coin.
If you will have a stool, it will cost you a gazet, which is
almost a penny.--CORYAT, _Crudities_, vol. ii. p. 15.
What monstrous and most painful circumstance
Is here to get some three or four _gazets_,
Some threepence in the whole.
BEN JONSON, _Volpone_, act ii. sc. 2.
=GELDING.= Restrained at present to _horses_ which have ceased to be
entire; but until ‘eunuch,’ which is of somewhat late adoption, had
been introduced into the language, serving also the needs which that
serves now.
Thanne Joseph was lad in Egepte, and bought him Potiphar, the
_gelding_ of Pharao.--_Gen._ xxxix. 1. WICLIF.
And whanne thei weren come up of the watir, the spirit of
the Lord ravyschide Filip, and the _gelding_ say hym no
more.--_Acts_ viii. 39. WICLIF.
Lysimachus was very angry, and thought great scorn that
Demetrius should reckon him a _gelding_.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
Lives_, p. 741.
=GENEROSITY.= We still use ‘generous’ occasionally in the sense of
highly or nobly born; but ‘generosity’ has quite lost this its earlier
sense, and acquired a purely ethical meaning. Its history illustrates,
as does the history of so many other words, what one may call the
aristocratic tendencies of language.
Nobility began in thine ancestors and ended in thee: and the
_generosity_ that they gained by virtue, thou hast blotted by
vice.--LYLY, _Euphues and his England_.
Their eyes are commonly black and small, noses little, nails
almost as long as their fingers, but serving to distinguish
their _generosity_.--HARRIS, _Voyages_, vol. i. p. 465.
=GENIAL.= It is curious to find ‘genial’ used in a sense not merely
so different, but so directly opposed to that in which we employ it
now, as in the quotation which follows we do. Whether there are other
examples of the same use, I am unable to say.
There are not a few very much to be pitied, whose industry
being not attended with natural parts, they have sweat to
little purpose, and rolled the stone in vain, which chiefly
proceedeth from natural incapacity and _genial_ indisposition,
at least to those particulars whereunto they apply their
endeavours.--Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, b. i. c. 5.
=GESTATION.= Now a technical word applied only to the period during
which the females of animals carry their young; but acknowledging no
such limitation once.
_Gestation_ in a chariot or wagon hath in it a shaking of the
body, but some vehement, and some more soft.--Sir T. ELYOT,
_Castle of Health_, b. ii. c. 34.
_Gestation_, an exercise of the body, by being carried
in coach, litter, upon horseback, or in a vessel on the
water.--HOLLAND, _Pliny, Explanation of the Words of Art_.
=GHOST.= It is only in the very highest acceptation of all that ‘Ghost’
and ‘Spirit’ are now synonymous and exchangeable. They once were so
through the entire range of their several uses.
And in this manere was man made,
And thus God gaf hym a _goost_.
_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus ix. 45 (Skeat).
As wel in body as _goost_, chaste was sche.
CHAUCER, _The Doctoures Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 77).
He sawe that the heavens opened, and the _goost_ as a dove
commynge downe upon Him.--_Mark_ i. 10. COVERDALE.
=GIRL.= A child, and this of either sex. In Middle English the phrase
‘knave gerlys’ occurs in the sense of boys. It fared in early English
not otherwise with ‘wench’ (which see).
Thorw wyn and thorw women there was Loth acombred,
And there gat in glotonye _gerlis_ that were cherlis.
_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus i. 32 (Skeat).
In daunger he hadde at his owne assise
The yonge _gurles_ of the diocise,
And knew here counseil.
CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales, The Prologue_, 663
(Morris, ii. p. 21).
=GIST.= This, the Old French ‘giste,’ from the old ‘gésir’ (Latin
‘jacēre’) meant formerly, as the French word ‘gîte’ means still, the
place where one lodges for the night. A scroll containing the route and
resting places of a royal party during a progress was sometimes so
called. For the connexion between ‘gist’ in this sense and ‘gist’ as we
use it now see Skeat’s _Dictionary_.
After he had sent Popilius before in spial, and perceived that
the avenues were open in all parts, he marched forward himself,
and by the second _gist_ came to Dium [secundis _castris_
pervenit ad Dium].--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1174.
The guides who were to conduct them on their way had
commandment so to cast their _gists_ and journeys that by three
of the clock in the morning of the third day they might assail
Pythoum.--Id., _ib._ p. 1193.
=GLORY=, }
GLORIOUS, }
GLORIOUSLY. }
‘Glory’ is never employed now in the sense of ‘_vain_-glory,’ nor
‘glorious’ in that of ‘_vain_-glorious,’ as once they often were.
In military commanders and soldiers, _vain-glory_ is an
essential point; for as iron sharpens iron, so by _glory_ one
courage sharpeneth another.--BACON, _Essays_, 54.
So commonly actions begun in _glory_ shut up in shame.--Bishop
HALL, _Contemplations, On Babel_.
To that intent God maid him thus,
That man suld nocht be _glorious_,
Nor in himself na thing suld se
But mater of humilitie.
LYNDESAY, _The Monarchie_.
Some took this for a _glorious_ brag; others thought he
[Alcibiades] was like enough to have done it.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 183.
Likewise _glorious_ followers, who make themselves as
trumpets of the commendation of those they follow, are full
of inconveniences. For they taint business through want of
secrecy; and they export honour from a man, and make him a
return in envy.--BACON, _Essays_, 48 (Abbott, ii. p. 66).
He [Anselm] little dreamt then that the weeding-hook of
Reformation would after two ages pluck up his _glorious_
poppy [prelacy] from insulting over the good corn
[presbytery].--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. i. c.
5.
I speak it not _gloriously_, or out of affectation.--BEN
JONSON, _Every Man out of his Humour_, act ii. sc. 1.
=GOOD-NATURE=, }
GOOD-NATURED. }
As metaphysics have yielded us ‘common sense,’ and logic ‘formal’ and
‘formality,’ so we owe to theology ‘good-nature.’ By it our elder
divines understood far more than we understand by it now; even all
which it is possible for a man to have, without having the grace of
God. The contrast between grace and nature was of course unknown to the
Greeks; but, this being kept in mind, we may say that the ‘good-nature’
of our theology two centuries ago was as nearly as possible expressed
by the εὐφυΐα of Aristotle (_Eth. Nic._ iii. 7; compare the
‘heureusement né’ of the French); the genial preparedness for the
reception of every high teaching. In the paper of _The Spectator_,
quoted below, which treats exclusively of ‘good-nature,’ the word is
passing, but has by no means passed, into its modern meaning. See
‘Ill-nature.’
_Good-nature_, being the relics and remains of that shipwreck
which Adam made, is the proper and immediate disposition to
holiness. When _good-nature_ is heightened by the grace of God,
that which was natural becomes now spiritual.--Bishop TAYLOR,
_Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Dalstone_.
_Good-nature!_ alas, where is it? Since Adam fell, there was
never any such thing in rerum naturâ; if there be any good
thing in any man, it is all from grace. We may talk of this and
that, of _good-natured men_, and I know not what; but the very
truth is, set grace aside (I mean all grace, both renewing
grace and restraining grace), there is no more _good-nature_
in any man than there was in Cain and in Judas. That thing
which we use to call _good-nature_ is indeed but a subordinate
means or instrument, whereby God restraineth some men more than
others, from their birth and special constitution, from sundry
outrageous exorbitances, and so is a branch of this restraining
grace whereof we now speak.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, 1671, vol.
i. p. 279.
If any good did appear in the conversation of some men who
followed that religion [the Pagan], it is not to be imputed
to the influence of that, but to some better cause; to the
relics of _good-nature_, to the glimmerings of natural light,
or (perhaps also) to secret whispers and impressions of divine
grace on some men’s minds vouchsafed in pity to them.--BARROW,
_Sermon 14 on the Apostles’ Creed_.
They [infidels] explode all natural difference of good and
evil; deriding benignity, mercy, pity, gratitude, ingenuity;
that is, all instances of _good-nature_, as childish and silly
dispositions.--Id., _Sermon 6 on the Apostles’ Creed_.
Xenophon, in the Life of his imaginary Prince, is always
celebrating the philanthropy or _good-nature_ of his
hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with
him.--_Spectator_, no. 169.
=GOSPELLER.= Now seldom used save in ritual language, and there
designating the priest or deacon who in the divine service reads the
Gospel of the day; but employed once as equivalent to ‘Evangelist,’ and
subsequently applied to adherents of the Reformed faith; both which
meanings have since departed from it.
Marke, the _gospeller_, was the goostli sone of Petre in
baptysm.--WICLIF, _The Prologe of Marke_.
The persecution was carried on against the _gospellers_ with
much fierceness by those of the Roman persuasion.--STRYPE,
_Memorial of Archbishop Cranmer_, b. iii. c. 16.
=GOSSIP.= It would be interesting to collect instances in which the
humbler classes of society have retained the correct use of a word,
which has been let go by those of higher education. ‘Gossip’ is one,
being still used by our peasantry in its first and etymological sense,
namely as a sponsor in baptism--one _sib_ or akin in _God_, according
to the doctrine of the medieval Church, that sponsors contracted a
spiritual affinity with the child for whom they stood. ‘Gossips,’ in
this primary sense, would often be familiar with one another--and thus
the word was applied to all familiars and intimates. At a later day it
came to signify such idle talk, the ‘commérage’ (which word has exactly
the same history), which too often would find place in the intercourse
of such.
They had mothers as we had; and those mothers had _gossips_ (if
their children were christened), as we are.--BEN JONSON, _The
Staple of News, The Induction_.
Thus fareth the golden mean, through the misconstruction of
the extremes. Well-tempered zeal is lukewarmness; devotion is
hypocrisy; charity, ostentation; constancy, obstinacy; gravity,
pride; humility, abjection of spirit; and so go through
the whole parish of virtues, where misprision and envy are
_gossips_, be sure the child shall be nicknamed.--WHITLOCK,
_Zootomia_, p. 3.
Should a great lady that was invited to be a _gossip_, in her
place send her kitchen-maid, ’twould be ill-taken.--SELDEN,
_Table-Talk, Prayer_.
=GRAVE.= The O.E. ‘grafan’ (compare German ‘graben,’ ‘to grave’) was
once used in the senses which ‘graben’ still retains. See ‘Engrave.’
They sette mark hir metyng sholde be
Ther King Nynus was _graven_, under a tree.
CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_, 784 (Skeat, p. 50).
I wil laye sege to the rounde aboute, and _grave_ up dykes
against ye.--_Isai._ xxix. 3. COVERDALE.
He hath _graven_ and digged up a pit, and is fallen himself
into the destruction that he made for other.--_Ps._ vii. 16.
(P. B. V.)
=GROPE.= Now to feel _for_, and uncertainly, as does a blind man or one
in the dark; but once simply to feel, to grasp.
Tho han hondis, and schulen not _grope_ [et non _palpabunt_,
Vulg.]--_Ps._ cxiii. 7. WICLIF.
I have touched and tasted the Lord, and _groped_ Him with
hands, and yet unbelief hath made all unsavoury.--ROGERS,
_Naaman the Syrian_, p. 231.
=GRUDGE.= Now to repine at the good which others already have, or which
we may be required to impart to them; but it formerly implied _open_
utterances of discontent and displeasure against others, and did the
work which ‘to murmur’ does now. Traces of this still survive in our
English Bible.
And the Farisees and scribis _grutchiden_; seiynge, For this
resseyveth synful men, and etith with hem.--_Luke_ xv. 2.
WICLIF.
After bakbytyng cometh _grucching_ or murmuracioun, and somtyme
it springith of impacience agayns God, and somtyme agains
man.--CHAUCER, _The Persones Tale_ (Morris, iii. p. 305).
Yea without _grudging_ Christ suffered the cruel Jews to
crown Him with most sharp thorns, and to strike Him with a
reed.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs: Examination of William Thorpe_.
Use hospitality one to another without _grudging_ [ἄνευ
γογγυσμῶν].--_1 Pet._ iv. 9. (A.V.)
=GUARD.= Is ‘guard,’ in the sense of welt or border to a garment,
nothing more than a _special_ application of ‘guard,’ as it is
familiar to us all? or is it altogether a different word with its own
etymology, and only by accident offering the same letters in the same
sequence? I have assumed, though not with perfect confidence, the
former; for indeed otherwise the word would have no right to a place
here.
Antipater wears in outward show his apparel with a plain white
welt or _guard_, but he is within all purple, I warrant you,
and as red as scarlet.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 412.
Then were the fathers of those children glad men to see their
sons apparelled like Romans, in fair long gowns, _garded_ with
purple.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 492.
Give him a livery
More _guarded_ than his fellows.
SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant of Venice_, act ii. sc. 2.
=HAG.= One of the many words applied formerly to both sexes, but now
restrained only to one. See ‘Coquet,’ ‘Girl,’ ‘Harlot,’ ‘Hoyden,’
‘Termagant,’ ‘Witch.’
And that old _hag_ [Silenus] that with a staff his staggering limbs
doth stay,
Scarce able on his ass to sit for reeling every way.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. iv.
Curst be thy throte and soule. Raven,
Schriech-owle, _hag_ [addressed to a man].
CHAPMAN, _Byron’s Conspiracies_, act iii.
=HANDSOME=, }
HANDSOMENESS. }
Now referred exclusively to comeliness, either literal or figurative.
It is of course closely connected with ‘handy,’ indeed differs from
it only in termination, and in all early uses means having prompt
and dexterous use of the hands, and then generally able, adroit.
In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_, ‘habile,’ ‘adroit,’ ‘maniable,’ take
precedence of ‘beau,’ ‘belle,’ as its French equivalents. See
‘Unhandsome.’
Few of them [the Germans] use swords or great lances; but
carry javelins with a narrow and short iron, but so sharp and
_handsome_, that, as occasion serveth, with the same weapon
they can fight both at hand and afar off.--GREENWEY, _Tacitus_,
vol. i. p. 259.
A light footman’s shield he takes unto him, and a Spanish blade
by his side, more _handsome_ to fight short and close [ad
propiorem _habili_ pugnam].--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 255.
Philopœmen sought to put down all exercise, which made men’s
bodies unmeet to take pains, and to become soldiers to fight in
defence of their country, that otherwise would have been very
able and _handsome_ for the same.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
p. 306.
Both twain of them made haste,
And girding close for _handsomeness_ their garments to their waist,
Bestirred their cunning hands apace.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.
=HARBINGER.= This word belongs at present to our poetical diction,
and to that only; its original significance being nearly or quite
forgotten: as is evident from the inaccurate ways in which it has come
to be used; as though a ‘harbinger’ were merely one who announced
the coming, and not always one who prepared a place and lodging, a
‘harbour,’ for another. He did indeed announce the near approach,
but only as an accidental consequence of his office. Our Lord, if we
may reverently say it, assumed to Himself precisely the office of a
‘harbinger,’ when He said, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (_John_
xiv. 2).
There was a _harbinger_ who had lodged a gentleman in a very
ill room; who expostulated with him somewhat rudely; but the
_harbinger_ carelessly said, ‘You will take pleasure in it when
you are out of it.’--BACON, _Apophthegms_.
I’ll be myself the _harbinger_, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach.
SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_, act i. sc. 4.
The fame of Frederick’s valour and maiden fortune, never as yet
spotted with ill success, like a _harbinger_ hastening before,
had provided victory to entertain him at his arrival.--FULLER,
_Holy War_, b. iii. c. 31.
A winged _harbinger_ from bright heaven flown
Bespeaks a lodging-room
For the mighty King of love,
The spotless structure of a virgin womb.
Bishop TAYLOR, _On the Annunciation_.
=HARDY=, }
HARDILY. }
When used of _persons_, ‘hardy’ means now enduring, indifferent to
fatigue, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and the like. But it had once
a far more prevailing sense of bold, which now only remains to it
in connexion with _things_, as we should still speak of a ‘hardy,’
meaning thereby a bold, assertion; though never now of a ‘hardy,’ if we
intended a bold or daring person. Lord Bacon’s Charles the _Hardy_ is
Charles le _Téméraire_, or Charles the _Bold_, as we always style him
now.
Hap helpeth _hardy_ man alday, quod he.
CHAUCER, _Legend of Good Women_ (Skeat, p. 86).
It is not to be forgotten that Commineus observeth of his
first master, duke Charles the _Hardy_, namely, that he would
communicate his secrets with none.--BACON, _Essays_, 27.
_Hardily_ [audacter, Vulg.] he entride in to Pilat, and axide
the body of Jhesu.--_Mark_ xv. 43. WICLIF (earlier version).
=HARLOT.= I have no desire to entangle myself in the question of this
word’s etymology; it is sufficient to observe that it was used of
both sexes alike; and though for the most part a word of slight and
contempt, signifying generally a low fellow, vagabond, buffoon, acrobat
(in the _Promptorium_ ‘scurrus’ is the Latin equivalent of it), implied
nothing of that special _form_ of sin to which it now exclusively
refers.
Salle never _harlotte_ have happe, thorowe helpe of my Lord,
To kille a crownde kynge, with crysome enoynttede.
_Morte Arthure_, 2446.
That non _harlot_ were so hardy to leyne hande uppon hym.
_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus 18, 77 (Skeat).
He was a gentil _harlot_ and a kynde.
CHAUCER, _Prologue_, 647.
Thou lord (God) has done mare wondire than the _herlot_:
he lerid to ga in a corde, thou makis men to ga abouen the
watire.--HAMPOLE, _Psalm_ xxxix. 7 (ed. Bramley, 1884).
No man but he and thou and such other false _harlots_ praiseth
any such preaching.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of
William Thorpe_.
About this time [A.D. 1264] a redress of certain sects was
intended, among which one by name specially occurreth, and
called the assembly of _harlots_,[16] a kind of people of a
lewd disposition and uncivil.--Id., _ib._ vol. i. p. 435.
=HARNESS.= In French the difference between the ‘harness’ of a man
and of a horse is expressed by a slight difference in the spelling,
‘harnois’ in one case, ‘harnais’ in the other. In English we only
retain the word now in the second of these uses.
But when a stronger then he cometh apon hym and overcommeth
him, he taketh from him his _harnes_ wherin he trusted, and
devideth his gooddes.--_Luke_ xi. 22. TYNDALE.
When Abram herde that his brother was taken, he _harnessed_ his
bonde-servauntes, and followed after them untill Dan.--_Gen._
xiv. COVERDALE.
Those that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him,
and _harness_ them with the bright armour of life and
immortality.--H. MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. iv. c.
18.
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-_harnessed_ angels sit in order serviceable.
MILTON, _On the Nativity_.
=HARVEST.= It is remarkable that while spring, summer, winter, have all
their home-bred names, we designate the other quarter of the year by
its Latin title ‘autumn,’ ‘hærfest’ (= the German ‘Herbst’) having been
appropriated to the ingathering of the _fruits_ of this season, not to
the season itself. In this indeed we are truer to the proper meaning
of ‘harvest’ than the Germans, who have transferred the word from the
former to the latter; for it is closely related with the Greek καρπός.
Occasionally, however, as in the passages which follow, ‘harvest’
assumes with us also the signification of autumn.
These ben _hervest_ trees [arbores autumnales, Vulg.] with out
fruyt, twies deed, drawun up bi the roote.--_Jude_ 12. WICLIF.
There stood the Springtime with a crown of fresh and fragrant flowers;
There waited Summer naked stark, all save a wheaten hat;
And _Harvest_ smeared with treading grapes late at the pressing fat;
And lastly quaking for the cold stood Winter all forlorn.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. ii.
=HASSOCK.= Already in Phillips’s _New World of Words_, 1706, the
‘hassock’ was what it is now, ‘a kind of straw cushion used to kneel
upon in churches;’ and some of us may remember to have seen in country
churches ‘hassocks’ of solid tufts of coarse black grass which had so
grown and matted together that they served this purpose sufficiently
well. But this is only the secondary and transferred use of the word.
It was once the name by which this coarse grass growing in these rank
tufts was itself called; and this name, as Forby tells us, in Norfolk
it still bears. See Way’s _Promptorium_, s. v. ‘Hassok.’
Land so full of hassocks as to be impossible to find the deer
among them.--HUTCHINSON, _Drainage of Land_.
These _hassocks_, in bogs, were formerly taken up with a part
of the soil, matted together with roots, shaped, trimmed, and
dressed, a sufficient part of their shaggy and tufted surface
being left to make kneeling much easier than on the pavement of
the church or the bare-boarded floor of a pew.--FORBY, _East
Anglia_.
=HATEFUL.= This has undergone exactly the same limitation of meaning as
‘Dreadful’ and ‘Frightful,’ which see.
Little office
The _hateful_ Commons will perform for us,
Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.
SHAKESPEARE, _Richard II._, act ii. sc. 2.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with _hateful_ eyes.
POPE, _Messiah_, 57.
=HEAR.= Our scholars of the seventeenth century occasionally use the
Latin idiom, ‘to hear well,’ or ‘to hear ill,’ _i.e._ concerning
oneself (bene audire, male audire), instead of, to be praised, or to be
blamed.
[Fabius] was well aware, that not only within his own camp, but
also now at Rome, he _heard ill_ for his temporizing and slow
proceedings.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 441.
What more national corruption, for which England _hears ill_
abroad, than household gluttony?--MILTON, _Areopagitica_, p.
431.
The abbot made his mind known to the Lord Keeper, that he
would gladly be present in the Abbey of Westminster on our
Christmas-day in the morning, to behold and hear how that
great feast was solemnized in our congregations, which _heard_
very _ill_ beyond the seas for profaneness.--HACKET, _Life of
Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 210.
=HEARSE.= Now the carriage in which the dead are conveyed to the grave,
but this was not the meaning from the first. The origin is the French
‘herse,’ a harrow; this implement in France being made in a triangular
form, not square as with us. Hence the name of ‘herce’ or ‘herche’ was
given to a triangular framework, generally of iron, used for holding a
number of candles at funerals; and which, being elaborately fashioned
and framed, was allowed afterwards to remain in the church for a longer
or shorter period.
In the quer was a _hersse_ mad of tymbur and covered with
blake, and armes upon the blake.--_Diary of Henry Machyn_,
1550-1563, p. 44.
A cenotaph is an empty funeral monument or tomb, erected for
the honour of the dead; in imitation of which our _hearses_
here in England are set up in churches during the continuance
of a year or for the space of certain months.--WEEVER, _Ancient
Funeral Monuments_, p. 32.
_Hearse_, an empty tomb erected for the honour of the
dead.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.
The beating of thy pulse, when thou art well,
Is just the tolling of thy passing bell.
Night is thy _hearse_, whose sable canopy
Covers alike deceasëd day and thee.
And all those weeping dews that nightly fall
Are but the tears shed for thy funeral.
Bishop KING, _Poems_, p. 19.
=HELP.= ‘To help’ used not unfrequently to designate an assisting in
one particular manner, in that namely of healing. A recent editor of
Shakespeare, not having this present in his mind, has said of those
lines first quoted below: ‘We cannot but believe Shakespeare wrote, Do
wounds _salve_ wounds, &c., or Do wounds _heal_ wounds, &c.’ There is
indeed nothing here needing to be set right.
Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
Do wounds _help_ wounds, or grief _help_ grievous deeds?
SHAKESPEARE, _Lucrece_.
Love doth to her repair,
To _help_ him of his blindness,
And being _helpt_ inhabits there.
Id., _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iv. sc. 2.
Still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
_Helping_ all urchin blasts and ill-luck signs
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make.
MILTON, _Comus_, 842.
=HEREAFTER.= This word, while it looks on to a future, always looks on
to one more or less divided by an interval of time from the present.
But it was often employed as equivalent to ‘from this time forth’ in
our Elizabethan literature; it is so in the examples which follow.
_Hereafter_ [ἀπ’ ἄρτι] ye shall see heaven open and the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son of man.--_St. John_
i. 51. (A.V.)
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name _hereafter_
The prince of Cumberland.
SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_, act i. sc. 4.
=HIDE.= This word is at present only contemptuously applied to the skin
of man, being reserved almost exclusively for that of beasts; but it
had once the same extent of meaning as by the German ‘haut’ is still
retained, which is ‘cutis’ and ‘pellis’ both.
The ladye fayre of hew and _hyde_
Shee sate downe by the bedside.
_Eger and Grine_, 263.
Her kerchers were all of silk,
Her hayre as white as any milke,
Lovesome of hue and _hyde_.
_Ballad of John de Reeve_, 226.
=HOBBY.= The ‘hobby’ being the ambling nag ridden for pleasure, and
then the child’s toy in imitation of the same, had in these senses
nearly passed out of use, when the word revived, by a very natural
transfer, in the sense which it now has, of a favourite pursuit which
carries a man easily and pleasantly forward.
They have likewise excellent good horses (we term them
_hobbies_), which have not the same pace that other horses
in their course, but a soft and round amble, setting one leg
before another very finely.--HOLLAND, _Camden’s Ireland_, p. 63.
King Agesilaus, having a great sort of little children, was one
day disposed to solace himself among them in a gallery where
they played, and took a little _hobby_-horse of wood, and
bestrid it.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English Poesy_, b. iii. c. 24.
A _hobby_-horse, or some such pretty toy,
A rattle would befit you better, boy.
RANDOLPH, _Poems_, p. 19.
=HOMELY.= The etymology of ‘homely’ which Milton puts into the mouth of
Comus,
‘It is for _homely_ features to keep _home_;
They had their name hence,’
witnesses that in his time it had the same meaning which it has in
ours. At an earlier day, however, it much more nearly corresponded to
the German ‘heimlich,’ that is, secret, inward, familiar, as those may
be presumed to be that share in a common _home_. ‘Homeliness’ is more
than once the word by which Wiclif translates ‘mansuetudo:’ thus, _2
Cor._ x. 1; _Jam._ i. 21.
And the enemyes of a man ben thei that ben _homeli_ with
him.--_Matt._ x. 36. WICLIF. [Cf. _Judg._ xix. 4, and often.]
God graunte the thin _homly_ fo espye:
For in this world nys worse pestilence
Than _homly_ foo, alday in thy presence.
CHAUCER, _The Marchaundes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 335).
Such peple be able and worthi to be admytted into the _homeli_
reding of Holi Writt.--PECOCK, _Repressor_, c. 3.
With all these men I was right _homely_, and communed with them
long time and oft.--FOXE, _Book of Martyrs; Examination of
William Thorpe_.
=HOYDEN.= Now and for a long time since a clownish ill-bred _girl_;
what is vulgarly called in America a ‘gal-boy,’ yet it is only another
form of ‘heathen.’ Remote as the words appear at starting, it will
not be hard to bring them close together. In the first place, it is
only by a superinduced meaning that ‘heathen’ has its present sense
of non-christian; it is properly, as Grimm has abundantly shown, as
indeed _Piers Plowman_ had told us long ago, a dweller on the heath;
then any living a wild savage life; thus we have in Wiclif (_Acts_
xxviii. 1), ‘And the _hethene_ men [barbari, Vulg.] diden to us not
litil curtesie;’ and only afterwards was the word applied to those who
resisted to the last the humanizing influences of the Christian faith.
This ‘heathen’ is in Dutch ‘heyden’ (see Sewel); while less than two
hundred years ago ‘hoyden’ was by no means confined, as it now is, to
the female sex, the clownish ill-bred girl, but was oftener applied to
men.
Shall I argue of conversation with this _hoyden_, to go
and practise at his opportunities in the larder?--MILTON,
_Colasterion_.
Falourdin, _m._ A lusk, lowt, lurden, a lubberly sloven,
heavy sot, lumpish _hoydon_.--COTGRAVE, _A French and English
Dictionary_.
Badault, _m._ A fool, dolt, sot, fop, ass, coxcomb, gaping
_hoydon_.--Id. _ib._
A rude _hoidon_; Grue, badault, falourdin, becjaune; Balordo,
babionetto, rustico; Bouaron.--HOWELL, _Lexicon Tetraglotton_.
=HUMOUR=, }
HUMOUROUS, }
HUMOURIST. }
The four ‘humours’ in man, according to the old physicians, were blood,
choler, phlegm, and melancholy. So long as these were duly tempered,
all would be well. But so soon as any of them unduly preponderated,
the man became ‘humourous,’ one ‘humour’ or another bearing too great
a sway in him. As such, his conduct would not be according to the
received rule of other men, but have something peculiar, whimsical,
self-willed in it. In this the self-asserting character of the
‘humourous’ man lay the point of contact, the middle term, between the
modern use of ‘humour’ and the ancient. It was his ‘humour’ which would
lead a man to take an original view and aspect of things, a ‘humourous’
aspect, first in the old sense, which in some of our provincial
dialects still lives on, and then in that which we now employ. The
classical passage in English literature on ‘humour’ and its history
is the Prologue, or ‘Stage,’ as it is called, to Ben Jonson’s _Every
Man out of his Humour_; it is, however, too long to cite; an earlier
occurs in Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_, lib. 7, in init. See ‘Temper.’
‘Humourous’ has been sometimes used in quite another sense, as simply
equivalent to moist; so in the passage from Chapman’s _Homer_, quoted
below.
In which [kingdom of heaven] neither such high-flown
enthusiasts, nor any dry churlish reasoners and disputers,
shall have either part or portion, till they lay down those
gigantic _humours_, and become (as our Saviour Christ, who is
that unerring Truth, has prescribed) like little children.--H.
MORE, _Grand Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 15.
_Good Humour_ is not only the best security against enthusiasm,
but the best foundation of piety and true religion. For if
right thoughts and worthy apprehensions of the Supreme Being
are fundamental to all true worship and adoration, ’tis more
than probable we shall never miscarry in this respect except
through _Ill Humour_ only.--SHAFTESBURY, _Works_, 1727, vol. i.
p. 22.
Yet such is now the duke’s condition,
That he misconstrues all that you have done;
The duke is _humourous_.
SHAKESPEARE, _As You Like It_, act i. sc. 2.
The people thereof [Ephraim] were active, valiant, ambitious
of honour; but withal hasty, _humourous_, hard to be pleased;
forward enough to fight with their foes, and too forward to
fall out with their friends.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
Palestine_, b. ii. c. 9.
Or it may be (what is little better than that), instead of the
living righteousness of Christ, he will magnify himself in some
_humourous_ pieces of holiness of his own.--H. MORE, _Grand
Mystery of Godliness_, b. viii. c. 14.
Upon his sight of the first signs and experiments of the
plagues which did accompany them, he [Pharaoh] demeaned himself
like a proud phantastic _humorist_.--JACKSON, _Christ’s
Everlasting Priesthood_, b. x. c. 40.
The seamen are a nation by themselves, a _humourous_ and
fantastic people.--CLARENDON, _History of the Rebellion_, b.
ii. in init.
Wretched men, that shake off the true comely habit of religion,
to bespeak them a new-fashioned suit of profession at an
_humourist’s_ shop!--ADAMS, _The Devil’s Banquet_, p. 52.
This eased her heart and dried her _humourous_ eye.
CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, b. iv. l. 120.
=HUNGER.= It was long before this and ‘famine’ were desynonymized, and
indeed the great famine year is still spoken of in Ireland as ‘the year
of the hunger.’ Still in the main the words are distinguished, ‘famine’
expressing an outward fact, the dearth of food, and ‘hunger’ the inward
sense and experience of this fact.
And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong _hungre_
was maad in that cuntre.--_Luke_ xv. 14. WICLIF.
Pestilences and _hungers_ shall be
And erthedyns in many contré.
RICHARD ROLLE DE HAMPOLE, _Pricke of Conscience_, 4035.
Oon of hem roos up, Agabus bi name, and signefiede bi the
spirit a greet _hungur_ to comynge in al the world, which
_hungur_ was maad undur Claudius.--_Acts_ xi. 28. WICLIF.
Behold the tyme commeth that I shal sende an _hunger_ in
to the earth; not the _hunger_ of bread, nor the thyrst of
water.--_Amos_ viii. 11. COVERDALE.
=HUSBAND.= This, the Old Norse ‘hús-bondi,’ is much more nearly the
Latin ‘paterfamilias’ than ‘vir.’ As the house, above all that of him
who owns and tills the soil, stands by a wise and watchful economy,
it is easy to see how ‘husband’ came to signify one who knows how
prudently to spare and save.
All good _husbands_ agree in this, That every work should have
the due and convenient season.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p.
556.
They are too good _husbands_, and too thrifty of God’s grace,
too sparing of the Holy Ghost, that restrain God’s general
propositions, Venite omnes, Let all come, so particularly as to
say that when God says _all_, he means some.--DONNE, _Sermon
33_.
Thou dost thyself wise and industrious deem;
A mighty _husband_ thou wouldst seem;
Fond man, like a bought slave thou all the while
Dost but for others sweat and toil.
COWLEY, _The Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches_.
After we come once to view the seam or vein where the hidden
treasure lies, we account all we possess besides as dross; for
whose further assurance we alienate all our interest in the
world, with as great willingness as good _husbands_ do base
tenements or hard-rented leases, to compass some goodly royalty
offered them more than half for nothing.--JACKSON, _The Eternal
Truth of the Scriptures_, b. iv. c. 8.
=IDIOT=, }
IDIOTICAL. }
A word with a very interesting and instructive history, which,
however, is only fully intelligible by a reference to the Greek. The
ἰδιώτης or ‘idiot’ is first the private man as distinguished from
the man sustaining a public office; then, inasmuch as public life
was considered an absolutely necessary condition of man’s highest
education, the untaught or mentally undeveloped, as distinguished from
the educated; and only after it had run through these courses did
‘idiot’ come to signify what ἰδιώτης never did, the man whose mental
powers are not merely unexercised but deficient, as distinguished from
him in full possession of them. This is the only employment to which we
now put the word; but examples of its earlier and more Greek uses are
frequent in Jeremy Taylor and others. See my _Synonyms of the N.T._ §
79.
And here, again, their allegation out of Gregory the First and
Damascene, That images be the laymen’s books, and that pictures
are the Scripture of _idiots_ and simple persons, is worthy to
be considered.--_Homilies; Against Perils of Idolatry_.
It is clear, by Bellarmine’s confession, that S. Austin
affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to
all laics, and all _idiots_ or private persons.--Bishop TAYLOR,
_A Dissuasive from Popery_, part ii. b. i. § 1.
Christ was received of _idiots_, of the vulgar people, and
of the simpler sort, while He was rejected, despised, and
persecuted even to death by the high priests, lawyers, scribes,
doctors, and rabbies.--BLOUNT, _Philostratus_, p. 237.
It [Scripture] speaks commonly according to vulgar
apprehension, as when it tells of ‘the ends of the heaven;’
which now almost every _idiot_ knows hath no ends at all.--JOHN
SMITH, _Select Discourses_, vi., _On Prophecy_.
Truth is content, when it comes into the world, to wear
our mantles, to learn our language: it speaks to the most
_idiotical_ sort of men in the most _idiotical_ way. The reason
of this plain and _idiotical_ style of Scripture it may be
worth our farther taking notice of.--Id., _ibid._
=ILL-NATURE=, }
ILL-NATURED. }
This is now rather one special evil quality, as κακία is often in
Greek; it was once the complex of all, or more properly the natural
substratum on which they all were superinduced. See ‘Good-nature,’ and,
in addition to the passage from South, quoted below, a very instructive
discussion on both words in his _Sermons_, 1737, vol. vi. pp. 104-111.
I may truly say of the mind of an ungrateful person, that
it is kindness-proof. It is inpenetrable, unconquerable;
unconquerable by that which conquers all things else, even by
love itself. And the reason is manifest; for you may remember
that I told you that ingratitude sprang from a principle of
_ill-nature_; which being a thing founded in such a certain
constitution of blood and spirit, as being born with a man
into the world, and upon that account called _nature_, shall
prevent all remedies that can be applied by education.--SOUTH,
_Sermons_, 1737, vol. i. p. 429.
King Henry the Eighth was an _ill-natured_ prince to execute so
many whom he had so highly favoured.--Sir T. OVERBURY, _Crumbs
fallen from King James’ Table_.
He is the worst of men, whom kindness cannot soften, nor
endearments oblige; whom gratitude cannot tie faster than
the bands of life and death.--He is an _ill-natured_
sinner.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Miracles of the Divine Mercy_,
serm. 27.
=IMP.= Employed in nobler senses formerly than now. ‘To imp’ is
properly to engraft, and an ‘imp’ a graft, scion, or young shoot; and,
even as we now speak of the ‘scions’ of a noble house, so there was
in earlier English the same natural transfer of ‘imps’ from plants to
persons.
I was sum-tyme a frere,
And the coventes gardyner for to graffe _ympes_.
_Piers Plowman_, B-text, Passus v. 136 (Skeat).
Of feble trees ther cometh feble _ympes_.
CHAUCER, _The Monkes Prologue_ (Morris, iii. p. 200).
The sudden taking away of those most goodly and virtuous young
_imps_, the Duke of Suffolk and his brother, by the sweating
sickness, was it not also a manifest token of God’s heavy
displeasure towards us?--BECON, _A Comfortable Epistle_.
The king returned into England with victory and triumph; the
king preferred there eighty noble _imps_ to the order of
knighthood.--STOW, _Annals_, 1592, p. 385.
=IMPOTENT=, }
IMPOTENCE. }
The inner connexion between weakness and violence is finely declared in
Latin in the fact that ‘impotens’ and ‘impotentia’ imply both; so once
did ‘impotent’ and ‘impotence’ in English (see Spenser’s _Fairy Queen_,
ii. 11, 23), though they now retain only the meaning of weak.
An _impotent_ lover
Of women for a flash; but his fires quenched,
Hating as deadly.
MASSINGER, _The Unnatural Combat_, act iii. sc. 2.
The Lady Davey, ever _impotent_ in her passions, was
even distracted with anger, that she was crossed in her
will.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 194.
The truth is, that in this battle and whole business the
Britons never more plainly manifested themselves to be right
barbarous; such confusion, such _impotence_, as seemed likest
not to a war, but to the wild hurry of a distracted woman, with
as mad a crew at her heels.--MILTON, _History of England_, b.
ii.
If a great personage undertakes an action passionately and
upon great interest, let him manage it indiscreetly, let the
whole design be unjust, let it be acted with all the malice and
_impotency_ in the world, he shall have enough to flatter him,
but not enough to reprove him.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy Living_,
c. 2, § 6.
=IMPROVE.= So long as the verb ‘to improve’ was directly connected in
men’s thoughts with the Latin ‘improbare,’ it was inevitable that it
should have a meaning very different from that which now attaches to
it; and so we find it used as equivalent to the Greek ἐλέγχειν, the
Latin ‘reprobare,’ to disapprove of, to disallow.
If tho thre [opinions] be sufficiently _improved_, that is to
saie, if it be sufficiently schewen that the thre be nought
and untrewe and badde, alle the othere untrewe opiniouns
bilded upon hem muste needis therebi take her fal.--PECOCK,
_Repressor_, part 1, c. 1.
For love of the world the olde pharesies blasphemed the Holy
Ghost, and persecuted the manifest truth which they could not
_improve_.--TYNDALE, _Exposition on the First Epistle of S.
John_.
If ye cannot _improve_ it [my doctrine] by God’s word, and
yet of an hate and malicious mind that you bear to the truth,
labour to resist it and condemn it that it should not spread, I
ensure you your sin is irremissible and even against the Holy
Ghost.--FRITH, _Works_, 1572, p. 3.
Be instant in season and out of season; _improve_ [ἔλεγξον],
rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.--_2 Tim._
iv. 2. (Geneva Version.)
=INCENSE.= Now to kindle _anger_ only; but once to kindle or inflame
any passion, good or bad, in the breast. Anger, as the strongest
passion, finally appropriated the word, just as in Greek it made θυμός
and ὀργή its own.
He [Asdrubal] it was, that when his men were weary and
drew back, _incensed_ [accendit] them again, one while by
fair words and entreaty, another while by sharp checks and
rebukes.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 665.
Prince Edward struck his breast and swore, that though all his
friends forsook him, yet he would enter Ptolemais, though only
with Fowin, his horsekeeper. By which speech he _incensed_ the
English to go on with him.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. iv. c. 28.
=INCIVILITY.= See ‘Civil.’
By this means infinite numbers of souls may be brought from
their idolatry, bloody sacrifices, ignorance, and _incivility_,
to the worshipping of the true God.--Sir W. RALEIGH, _Of the
Voyage for Guiana_.
=INCREDULOUS=, }
INCREDULITY. }
In Low Latin, and in ages of a blind unintelligent faith, ‘credulitas’
came to be regarded as equivalent to ‘fides,’ and ‘credulity’ to
‘faith.’ The two latter, with their negatives, ‘incredulity’ and
‘unbelief,’ have been usefully desynonymized in our later English; but
the quotations which follow will show that this was not always the case.
For we also were sometime unwise, _incredulous_, erring,
serving divers lusts and voluptuousnesses.--_Tit._ iii. 3.
Rhemish Version.
And we see that they could not enter in because of
_incredulity_.--_Heb._ iii. 19. The same version.
But let us take heed; as God hates a lie, so He hates
_incredulity_, an obstinate, a foolish, and pertinacious
understanding.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Sermon at the Funeral of the
Lord Primate_.
=INDIFFERENT=, }
INDIFFERENCE, }
INDIFFERENTLY. }
It is a striking testimony of the low general average which we assume
common to most things, that a thing which does not _differ_ from
others, is therefore qualified as poor; a sentence of depreciation is
pronounced upon it when it is declared to be ‘indifferent.’ When in
Greek διαφέρειν means ‘præstare,’ and τὰ διαφέροντα ‘præstantiora,’ we
have exactly the same feeling embodying itself at the other end. But
this use of these words is modern. ‘Indifferent’ was impartial once,
not _making_ differences where none really were.
God receiveth the learned and unlearned, and casteth away none,
but is _indifferent_ unto all.--_Homilies: Exhortation to the
Reading of Holy Scripture._
If overseer of the poor, he [the good parishioner] is careful
the rates be made _indifferent_, whose inequality oftentimes is
more burdensome than the sum.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c.
11.
Come Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
The _indifferent_ judge between the high and low.
Sir P. SIDNEY, _Astrophel and Stella_, 39.
Requesting that they might speak before the senate, and be
heard with _indifference_.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1214.
That they may truly and _indifferently_ minister
justice.--_Book of Common Prayer._
=INDIVIDUAL.= Properly not capable of division; indivisible, as is an
atom; then, undivided, inseparable, and so used in the quotations which
follow. We, using ‘individual’ as = person, have in fact recurred to
the earlier meaning.
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an _individual_ kiss,
And joy shall overtake us like a flood.
MILTON, _On Time_.
Anacreon,
My _individual_ companion.
HOLYDAY, _Marriages of the Arts_, act ii. sc. 6.
=INDOLENCE.= ‘Indolentia’ was a word first invented by Cicero, when
he was obliged to find some equivalent for the ἀπάθεια of certain
Greek schools. That it was not counted one of his happiest coinages
we may conclude from the seldom use of it by any other authors but
himself, as also from the fact that Seneca, a little later proposing
‘impatientia’ as the Latin equivalent for ἀπάθεια, implied that none
such had hitherto been found. The word has taken firmer root in English
than it ever did in Latin. At the same time, meaning as it does now a
disposition or temper of languid non-exertion, it has lost the accuracy
of use which it had in the philosophical schools, where it signified a
state of freedom from passion and pain; which signification it retained
among our own writers of the Caroline period, and even later. To this
day, indeed, surgeons call certain painless swellings ‘_indolent_
tumours.’
Now, to begin with fortitude, they say it is the mean
between cowardice and rash audacity, of which twain the one
is a defect, the other an excess of the ireful passion;
liberality between niggardise and prodigality, clemency and
mildness between senseless _indolence_ and cruelty.--HOLLAND,
_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 69.
Now though Christ were far from both, yet He came nearer to an
excess of passion than to an _indolency_, to a senselessness,
to a privation of natural affections. Inordinateness of
affections may sometimes make some men like some beasts; but
_indolency_, absence, emptiness, privation of affections,
makes any man, at all times, like stones, like dirt.--DONNE,
_Sermons_, 1640, p. 156.
The submission here spoken of in the text is not a stupid
_indolence_, or insensibility under such calamities as God
shall be pleased to bring upon us.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744,
vol. x. p. 97.
=INGENIOUS=, }
INGENUOUS, }
INGENIOUSLY, }
INGENUITY, }
INGENUOUSNESS. }
We are now pretty well agreed in our use of these words; but there
was a time when the uttermost confusion reigned amongst them. Thus,
in the first and second quotations which follow, ‘ingenious’ is used
where we should now use, and where oftentimes the writers of that time
would have used, ‘ingenuous,’ and the converse in the third; while in
like manner ‘ingenuity’ in each of the succeeding three quotations
stands for our present ‘ingenuousness,’ and ‘ingenuousness’ in the
last for ‘ingenuity.’ In respect of ‘ingenious’ and ‘ingenuous,’ the
arrangement at which we have now arrived regarding their several
meanings, namely that the first indicates _mental_, the second _moral_
qualities, is good; ‘ingenious’ being from ‘ingenium’ and ‘ingenuous’
from ‘ingenuus.’ But ‘ingenuity,’ being from ‘ingenuous,’ should have
kept the meaning, which it has now quite let go, of innate nobleness
of disposition; while ‘ingeniousness,’ against which there can be no
objection to which ‘ingenuousness’ is not equally exposed, might have
expressed what ‘ingenuity’ does now.
Now as an _ingenious_ debtor desires his freedom at his
creditor’s hands, that thereby he may be capable of paying his
debt, as well as to escape the misery which himself should
endure by his imprisonment; so an _ingenious_ soul (and such
is every saint) deprecates hell, as well with an eye to
God’s glory as to his own ease and happiness.--GURNALL, _The
Christian in Complete Armour_, part ii. c. 54, § 2.
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and _ingenious_ studies.
SHAKESPEARE, _Taming of the Shrew_, act i. sc. 1.
An _ingenious_ person will rather wear a plain garment of
his own than a rich livery, the mark of servitude.--BATES,
_Spiritual Perfection_, Preface.
Thou art true and honest; _ingeniously_ I speak;
No blame belongs to thee.
SHAKESPEARE, _Timon of Athens_, act ii. sc. 2.
Since heaven is so glorious a state, and so certainly designed
for us, if we please, let us spend all that we have, all our
passions and affections, all our study and industry, all
our desires and stratagems, all our witty and _ingenuous_
faculties, towards the arriving thither.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Holy
Dying_, c. 2, § 4.
Christian simplicity teaches openness and _ingenuity_ in
contracts and matters of buying and selling.--Id., _Sermon_ 24.
part ii.
When a man makes use of the name of any simple idea, which he
perceives is not understood, or is in danger to be mistaken, he
is obliged by the laws of _ingenuity_ and the end of speech, to
declare his meaning, and make known what idea he makes it stand
for.--LOCKE, _An Essay concerning Human Understanding_, b. iii.
c. 11, § 14.
It [gratitude] is such a debt as is left to every man’s
_ingenuity_ (in respect to any legal coaction) whether he will
pay it or no.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 410.
By his _ingenuousness_ he [the good handicrafts-man] leaves his
art better than he found it.--FULLER, _Holy State_, b. ii. c.
19.
=INN.= This has always meant a lodging, a place to which one turns
_in_; but it is now, and for a long time has been, restricted to one
which yields food and shelter, or it may be only the last, in return
for payment. Such terms as Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, attest the older
use of the word.
Arcite anoon unto his _inne_ is fare,
As fayn as foul is of the brighte sonne.
CHAUCER, _Knightes Tale_, 1578 (Morris, ii. p. 75).
The honey-makers’ busy buzzing swarm
Fiercely assail and wound the naked skins
Of such as come to rob their curious _inns_.
SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas, his Divine Works,
The Capitaine_, 369.
=INSOLENT=, }
INSOLENCE. }
The ‘insolent’ is properly no more than the unusual. This, as the
violation of the fixed law and order of society, is commonly offensive,
even as it indicates a mind willing to offend; and thus ‘insolent’ has
acquired its present meaning. But for the poet, the fact that he is
forsaking the beaten track, that he can say,
‘peragro loca, _nullius ante
Trita solo_,’
in this way to be ‘insolent’ or original, as we should now say, may
be his highest praise. The epithet ‘furious’ joined to ‘insolence’ in
the second quotation is to be explained of that ‘fine madness’ which
Spenser as a Platonist esteemed a necessary condition of the poet.
For ditty and amorous ode I find Sir Walter Raleigh’s vein most
lofty, _insolent_, and passionate.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English
Poesy_, b. i. c. 3.
Her great excellence
Lifts me above the measure of my might,
That, being fild with furious _insolence_,
I feele myselfe like one yrapt in spright.
SPENSER, _Colin Clout’s come Home again_, 619
(Morris, v. p. 105).
=INSTITUTE=, }
INSTITUTER, }
INSTITUTION. }
These all had once in English meanings coextensive with those of the
Latin words which they represent. We now inform, instruct (the images
are nearly the same), but we do not ‘institute,’ children any more.
A painful schoolmaster, that hath in hand
To _institute_ the flower of all a land,
Gives longest lessons unto those, where Heaven
The ablest wits and aptest wills hath given.
SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas; Seventh Day of the First Week_.
Neither did he this for want of better instructions, having
had the learnedest and wisest man reputed of all Britain, the
_instituter_ of his youth.--MILTON, _History of England_, b.
iii.
A Short Catechism for the _institution_ of young persons in the
Christian Religion.--_Title of a Treatise by Jeremy Taylor._
=INTEND=, }
INTENTION. }
The inveterate habit of procrastination has brought us to say now that
we ‘intend’ a thing, when we mean hereafter to do it. Our fathers with
a more accurate use of the word ‘intended’ that which they were at
that moment actually and earnestly engaged in doing. The same habit of
procrastination has made ‘by-and-bye’ mean not straightway, but at a
comparatively remote period; and ‘presently’ not at this present, but
in a little while. ‘Intention’ too, or ‘intension,’ for Jeremy Taylor
in the same work spells the word both ways, was once something not
future but present.
The Devil sleepeth not. He ever _intendeth_ to withdraw us from
prayer.--LATIMER, _Sermons_, vol. i. p. 342.
So often as he [Augustus] was at them [the games], he did
nothing else but _intend_ the same.--HOLLAND, _Suetonius_, p.
60.
He [Lord Bacon] saw plainly that natural philosophy hath been
_intended_ by few persons, and in them hath occupied the least
part of their time.--BACON, _Filum Labyrinthi_, 6.
It is so plain that every man profiteth in that he most
_intendeth_, that it needeth not to be stood upon.--Id.,
_Essays_, 29.
I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul,
Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,
Is hurt with mere _intention_ on their follies.
BEN JONSON, _Cynthia’s Revels_.
But did you not
Observe with what _intention_ the duke
Set eyes on Domitilla?
SHIRLEY, _The Royal Master_, act ii. sc. 1.
According as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers
imperfect; meditation being the soul of prayer, and the
_intention_ of our spirit.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Life of Christ_,
part i. § 5.
=JACOBIN.= The great French Revolution has stamped itself too deeply
and terribly upon the mind of Europe for ‘Jacobin’ ever again to have
any other meaning than that which the famous Club, assembling in the
hall of the Jacobin convent, has given it; but it needs hardly to say
that a ‘Jacobin’ was once a Dominican friar, though this name did not
extend beyond France.
Now am I yonge, stoute and bolde,
Now am I Robert, now Robyn,
Now frere menour, now _jacobyn_.
_Romaunt of the Rose_, 6339 (Morris, vi. p. 193).
Agent for England, send thy mistress word,
What this detested _Jacobin_ hath done.
MARLOWE, _The Massacre at Paris_, act iii. sc. 4.
A certain _Jacobin_ offered himself to the fire to prove that
Savonarola had true revelations, and was no heretic.--Bishop
TAYLOR, _The Liberty of Prophesying_, The Epistle Dedicatory.
=JOLLY.= For a long time after its adoption into the English language,
‘jolly’ kept the meaning of beautiful, which it brought with it from
the French, and which ‘joli’ in French still retains.
Then sete thei thre to solas hem at the windowe,
Even over the _joly_ place that to that paleis longed.
_William of Palerne_, 5478.
I know myself to be
A _jolly_ fellow: for even now I did behold and see
Mine image in the water sheer, and sure methought I took
Delight to see my goodly shape and favour in the brook.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. 13.
When all the glorious realm of pure delight,
Illustrious Paradise, waited on the feet
Of _jolly_ Eve.
BEAUMONT, _Psyche_, iv. 4.
=KINDLY.= Nothing ethical was connoted in ‘kindly’ once; it was simply
the adjective of ‘kind.’ But it is God’s ordinance that ‘kind’ should
be ‘kindly,’ in our modern sense of the word as well; and thus the word
has attained this meaning. See ‘Unkind.’
This Joon in the Gospel witnesseth that the _kyndeli_ sone of
God is maad man.--WICLIF, _Prologe of John_.
Forasmuch as his mind gave him, that, his nephews living, men
would not reckon that he could have right to the realm, he
thought therefore without delay to rid them, as though the
killing of his kinsmen could amend his cause, and make him a
_kindly_ king.--Sir T. MORE, _History of King Richard III._
The royal eagle is called in Greek Gnesios, as one would say,
true and _kindly_, as descended from the gentle and right aëry
of eagles.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 272.
Whatsoever as the Son of God He may do, it is _kindly_ for
Him as the Son of Man to save the sons of men.--ANDREWES,
_Sermons_, vol. iv. p. 253.
Where are they? Gone to their own place, to Judas their
brother; and, as is most _kindly_, the sons, to the father, of
wickedness, there to be plagued with him for ever.--Id., _Of
the Conspiracy of the Gowries_, serm. 4.
What greater tyranny and usurpation over poor souls would he
have than is now exercised, since the perjured prelates, the
_kindly_ brood of the Man of sin, have defiled and burdened our
poor Church?--_Jus Populi Vindicatum_, 1665.
=KNAVE.= How many serving-lads must have been unfaithful and dishonest
before ‘knave,’ which meant at first no more than boy, acquired the
meaning which it has now! Note the same history in the German ‘Bube,’
‘Dirne,’ ‘Schalk,’ and see ‘Varlet.’
If it is a _knave_ child, sle ye him; if it is a womman, kepe
ye.--_Exodus_ i. 16. WICLIF.
The tyme is come, a _knave_ childe sche bere.
CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 192).
O murderous slumber,
Lay’st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music? gentle _knave_, good night.
SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, act iv. sc. 3.
=KNUCKLE.= The German ‘Knöchel’ is any joint whatsoever; nor was our
‘knuckle’ limited formerly, as now it well nigh exclusively is, at
least in regard of the human body, to certain smaller joints of the
hand.
Thou, Nilus, wert assigned to stay her pains and travels past,
To which as soon as Io came with much ado, at last,
With weary _knuckles_ on thy brim she kneeled sadly down.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. 1.