This Posthumus,
Most like a noble lord in love, and one
That had a royal _lover_, took his hint.
SHAKESPEARE, _Cymbeline_, act v. sc. 5.
If I freely may discover
What would please me in a _lover_,
I would have _her_ fair and witty,
Savouring more of court than city.
BEN JONSON, _The Poetaster_.
=LUCID INTERVAL.= We limit this at present to the brief and transient
season when a mind, ordinarily clouded and obscured by insanity,
recovers for a while its clearness. It had no such limitation formerly,
but was of very wide use, as the four passages quoted below, in each of
which its application is different, will show.[18]
East of Edom lay the land of Uz, where Job dwelt, so renowned
for his patience, when the devil heaped afflictions upon him,
allowing him no _lucid intervals_.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
Palestine_, b. iv. c. 2.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a _lucid interval_:
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
DRYDEN, _Mac-Flecknoe_.
Such is the nature of man, that it requires _lucid intervals_;
and the vigour of the mind would flag and decay, should it
always jog on at the rate of a common enjoyment, without being
sometimes quickened and exalted with the vicissitude of some
more refined pleasures.--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. viii. p.
403.
Thus he [Lord Lyttelton] continued, giving his dying
benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a _lucid
interval_ gave some small hopes; but these vanished in the
evening.--_Narrative of the Physician, inserted in Johnson’s
Life of Lord Lyttelton._
=LUMBER.= As the Lombards were the bankers, so also they were the
pawnbrokers of the Middle Ages; indeed, as they would often advance
money upon pledges, the two businesses were very closely joined, would
often run in, to one another. The ‘lumber’ room was originally the
Lombard room, or room where the Lombard banker and broker stowed away
his pledges; ‘lumber’ then, as in the passage from Butler, the pawns
and pledges themselves. As these would naturally often accumulate here
till they became out of date and unserviceable, the steps are easy to
be traced by which the word came to possess its present meaning.
_Lumber_, potius _lumbar_, as to put one’s clothes to _lumbar_,
_i.e._ pignori dare, oppignorare.--SKINNER, _Etymologicon_.
And by an action falsely laid of trover
The _lumber_ for their proper goods recover.
BUTLER, _Upon Critics_.
They put up all the little plate they had in the _lumber_,
which is pawning it, till the ships came.--Lady MURRAY, _Lives
of George Baillie and of Lady Grisell Baillie_.
=LURCH.= ‘To lurch’ is seldom used now except of a ship, which
‘lurches’ when it makes something of a headlong dip in the sea; the
fact that by so doing it, partially at least, hides itself, and
so ‘lurks,’ explains this employment of the word. But ‘to lurch,’
generally as an active verb, was of much more frequent use in early
English; and soon superinduced on the sense of lying concealed that
of lying in wait with the view of intercepting and seizing a prey.
After a while this superadded notion of intercepting and seizing some
booty quite thrust out that of lying concealed; as in all three of the
quotations which follow. See Skeat’s Dictionary.
It is not an auspicate beginning of a feast, nor agreeable
to amity and good fellowship, to snatch or _lurch_ one from
another, to have many hands in a dish at once, striving a
vie who should be more nimble with his fingers.--HOLLAND,
_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 679.
I speak not of many more [discommodities of a residence]: too
far off from great cities, which may hinder business; or too
near them, which _lurcheth_ all provisions, and maketh every
thing dear.--BACON, _Essays_, 45 (ed. Abbott, ii. p. 50).
At the beginning of this war [the Crusades] the Pope’s temporal
power in Italy was very slender; but soon after he grew within
short time without all measure, and did _lurch_ a castle here,
gain a city there from the emperor, while he was employed in
Palestine.--FULLER, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 11.
=LUST.= Used at this present only in an ill sense, not as ἐπιθυμία, but
as ἐπιθυμία κακή (_Col._ iii. 5), and this mainly in one particular
direction. ‘Lust’ had formerly no such limitations, nor has it now in
German. The same holds good of the verb.
Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare
Was al his _lust_, for no cost wolde he spare.
CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_, 192.
Through faith a man is purged of his sins, and obtaineth _lust_
unto the law of God.--TYNDALE, _Prologue upon the Epistle to
the Romans_.
It was not because of the multitude of you above all nations
that the Lord had _lust_ unto you and chose you.--_Deut._ vii.
7. COVERDALE.
My _lust_ to devotion is little, my joy none at all.--Bishop
HALL, _Letters_, Dec. 2, Ep. 1.
Thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy
soul _lusteth_ after.--_Deut._ xii. 15. (A.V.)
=LUXURY=, }
LUXURIOUS. }
‘Luxuria’ in classical Latin was very much what our ‘luxury’ is now.
The meaning which in our earlier English was its only one, namely
indulgence in sins of the flesh, it derived from the use of ‘luxuria’
in the medieval ethics, where it never means anything else but this.
The weakening of the influence of the scholastic theology, joined to
a more familiar acquaintance with classical Latinity, has probably
caused its return to the classical meaning. In the definition given by
Phillips (see below), we note the process of transition from its old
meaning to its new, the old still remaining, but the new superinduced
upon it.
O foule luste, O _luxurie_, lo thin ende!
Nought oonly that thou feyntest mannes mynde,
But verrayly thou wolt his body schende.
CHAUCER, _The Man of Lawes Tale_ (Morris, ii. p. 198).
_Luxury_ and lust fasten a rust and foulness on the mind, that
it cannot see sin in its odious deformity, nor virtue in its
unattainable beauty.--BATES, _Spiritual Perfection_, c. 1.
_Luxury_, all superfluity and excess in carnal pleasures,
sumptuous fare or building; sensuality, riotousness,
profuseness.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.
She knows the heat of a _luxurious_ bed.
SHAKESPEARE, _Much Ado about Nothing_, act iv. sc. 1.
Again, that many of their Popes be such as I have
said, naughty, wicked, _luxurious_ men, they openly
confess.--JACKSON, _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_, b. ii. c.
14.
=MAGNIFICENT=, }
MAGNIFICENCE. }
Frequently used by our elder writers where we should employ munificent
or generous. Yet there lay in the word something more than in these;
something of the μεγαλοπρέπεια of Aristotle; a certain grandeur
presiding over and ordering this large distribution of wealth. Behind
both uses an earlier and a nobler than either may be traced, as is
evident from my first quotation.
Then cometh _magnificence_, that is to say when a man doth and
performeth gret werkes of goodnesse.--CHAUCER, _The Persones
Tale_.
Every amorous person becometh liberal and _magnificent_,
although he had been aforetime a pinching snudge; in such
sort as men take more pleasure to give away and bestow upon
those whom they love, than they do take and receive of
others.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 1147.
Am I close-handed,
Because I scatter not among you that
I must not call my own? know, you court-leeches,
A prince is never so _magnificent_
As when he’s sparing to enrich a few
With the injuries of many.
MASSINGER, _The Emperor of the East_, act ii. sc. 1.
Bounty and _magnificence_ are virtues very regal; but a
prodigal king is nearer a tyrant than a parsimonious.--BACON,
_Essays, Of a King_.
=MAID.= A word which, in its highest sense as = virgin, might once be
applied to either sex, to Sir Galahad as freely as to the _Pucelle_,
but which is now restricted to one. Compare παρθένος in Greek.
To him [John the Apostle] God hangyng in the cross bitook his
modir, that a _mayde_ schulde kepe a mayde.--WICLIF, _Prolog of
John_.
I wot wel that thapostil was a _mayde_;
But natheles, though that he wrot or sayde
He wold that every wight were such as he,
All nys but counseil to virginité.
CHAUCER, _Prologe of the Wyf of Bathe_, 79.
Sir Galahad is a _maid_ and sinner never; and that is the cause
he shall achieve where he goeth that ye nor none such shall not
attain.--Sir T. MALORY, _Morte D’Arthur_, b. xiii. c. 16.
=MAKE=, }
MAKER. }
The very early use of ‘maker,’ as equivalent to poet, and ‘to make’
as applied to the exercise of the poet’s art, is evidence that the
words are of genuine home-growth, and not mere imitations of the
Greek ποιητής and ποιεῖν, which Sir Philip Sidney, as will be seen
below, suggests as possible. The words, like the French ‘trouvère’ and
‘troubadour,’ the O.H.G. ‘scof,’ and the O.E. ‘sceop,’ mark men’s sense
that invention, and in a certain sense, creation, is the essential
character of the poet. The quotation from Chaucer will sufficiently
prove how entirely mistaken Sir John Harington was, when he affirmed
(_Apology for Poetry_, p. 2) that Puttenham in his _Art of English
Poesy_, 1589, was the first who gave ‘make’ and ‘maker’ this meaning.
Sir Walter Scott somewhere claims them as Scotticisms; but exclusively
such they certainly are not.
And eke to me hit is a greet penaunce,
Sith rym in English hath swich scarsitee,
To folowe word by word the curiositee
Of Graunson, flour of hem that _make_ in Fraunce.
CHAUCER, _Compleynt of Venus_, 79 (Skeat).
The God of shepherds, Tityrus, is dead,
Who taught me homely, as I can, to _make_.
SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, June_.
The old famous poete Chaucer, for his excellencie and wonderful
skil in _making_, his scholler Lidgate (a worthy scholler
of so excellent a maister) calleth the Loadestarre of our
language.--E. K., _Epistle Dedicatory to Spenser’s Shepherd’s
Calendar_.
There cannot be in a _maker_ a fouler fault than to falsify
his accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthography to
wrench his words to help his rhyme.--PUTTENHAM, _Art of English
Poesy_, b. ii. c. 8.
The Greeks named the poet ποιητής, which name, as the most
excellent, hath gone through other languages. It cometh of this
word ποιεῖν, to make; wherein I know not whether by luck or
wisdom we Englishmen have met well with the Greeks in calling
him a _maker_.--Sir P. SIDNEY, _Defence of Poesy_.
=MANSION.= This is a finely selected word, suggested no doubt by the
‘mansiones’ of the Vulgate, whereby our Translators, and Tyndale before
them, rendered the μοναί of John xiv. 2. Knowing, however, as we do
that μοναί never meant ‘mansions’ in our modern, or auctioneers’ sense
of the word, we cannot doubt that by this word they intended places of
tarrying, which might be for a longer or a shorter time; resting places
which remained for the Christian traveller who should have reached at
length his heavenly home. This use of ‘mansion’ as a place of tarrying
is frequent enough in our early literature, although our modern use is
by no means unknown.
They [the Angels] be pure minds and were never neither blinded
through sin, ne hindered through any earthly _mansion_ and
corruptible body.--HUTCHINSON, _Works_, p. 160 (ed. 1842).
Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My _mansion_ is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live unsphered,
In regions mild of calm and serene air.
MILTON, _Comus_, i. 4.
=MANURE.= The same word as ‘manœuvre,’ to work with the hand; and thus,
to till or cultivate the earth, this tillage being in earlier periods
of society the great and predominant labour of the hands. We restrain
the word now to one particular branch of this cultivation, but our
ancestors made it to embrace the whole.
The _manuring_ hand of the tiller shall root up all that
burdens the soil.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_.
It [Japan] is mountainous and craggy, full of rocks and stony
places, so that the third part of this empire is not inhabited
or _manured_.--_Memorials of Japan_ (Hakluyt Society), p. 3.
A rare and excellent wit untaught doth bring forth many
good and evil things together; as a fat soil, that lieth
_unmanured_, bringeth forth both herbs and weeds.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 185.
Every man’s hand itching to throw a cudgel at him, who, like
a nut-tree, must be _manured_ by beating, or else would never
bear fruit.--FULLER, _Holy War_, ii. 11.
=MEAN=, }
MEANNESS. }
O.E. ‘gemǽne,’ Goth. ‘gamains’ (compare Germ. ‘gemein’), cognate with
Latin ‘communis’ (our ‘common’)--all with a history very closely
corresponding to that of the Greek κοινός (see _Acts_ x. 14). The
connotation of moral baseness only accrued to the word by degrees.
And the _mean_ man boweth down, and the great man humbleth
himself.--_Isai._ ii. 9. (A.V.)
But, for his _meannesse_ and disparagement,
My Sire, who me too dearely well did love,
Unto my choice by no meanes would assent.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, iv. 7, 16.
=MECHANIC=, }
MECHANICAL. }
A word which now simply expresses a fact, and is altogether untinged
with passion or sentiment; but in its early history it ran exactly
parallel to the Greek βάναυσος, which, expressing first one who plied
a handicraft, came afterwards, in obedience to certain constant
tendencies of language, to imply the man ethically illiberal. See the
quotation from Holland, _s. v._ ‘Fairy.’
Base and _mechanical_ niggardise they [flatterers] account
temperate frugality.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 93.
Base dunghill villain and _mechanical_.
SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act i. sc. 3.
It was never a good world, since employment was counted
_mechanic_, and idleness gentility.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p.
30.
=MEDDLE.= This had once no such offensive meaning of mixing oneself up
in other people’s business as now it has. On the contrary, Barrow in
one of his sermons draws expressly the distinction between ‘meddling’
and being meddlesome, and only condemns the latter.
In the drynke that she _meddlid_ to you, mynge ye double to
hir.--_Apoc._ xviii. 6. WICLIF.
How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am
a Samaritan? For the Jews _meddle_ not [oὐ συγχρῶνται] with the
Samaritans.--_John_ iv. 9. CRANMER.
We beseech you, brethren, that ye study to be quiet, and to
_meddle_ with your own business.--_1 Thess._ iv. 10, 11.
TYNDALE.
Tho he, that had well y-cond his lere,
Thus _medled_ his talke with many a teare.
SPENSER, _The Shepherd’s Calendar, May_.
=MEDITERRANEAN.= Only seas are ‘mediterranean’ now, and for us only
one Sea; but there is no reason why cities and countries should not be
characterized as ‘mediterranean’ as well; and they were so once. We
have preferred, however, to employ ‘inland.’
Their buildings are for the most part of tymber, for the
_mediterranean_ countreys have almost no stone.--_The Kyngdome
of Japonia_, p. 6.
An old man, full of days, and living still in your
_mediterranean_ city, Coventry.--HENRY HOLLAND, _Preface to
Holland’s Cyropædia_.
It [Arabia] hath store of cities, as well _mediterranean_ as
maritime.--HOLLAND, _Ammianus_.
=MEDLEY.= The same word as the French ‘mêlée.’ It is plain from the
frequent use of the French ‘mêlée’ in the description of battles that
we feel now the want of a corresponding English word. There have been
attempts, though hardly successful ones, to naturalize ‘mêlée,’ and as
‘volée’ has become in English ‘volley,’ that so ‘mêlée’ should become
‘melley.’ Perhaps, as Tennyson has sanctioned these, employing ‘mellay’
in his _Princess_, they may now succeed. But there would have been no
need of this, nor yet of borrowing the modern French form, if ‘medley’
had been allowed to keep this more passionate use, which once it
possessed.
The consul for his part forslowed not to come to handfight. The
_medley_ continued above three hours, and the hope of victory
hung in equal balance.--HOLLAND, _Livy_, p. 1119.
Now began the conflict for the winning and defending of
that old castle, which proved a _medley_ of twelve hours
long.--_Swedish Intelligencer_, vol. ii. p. 41.
=MELANCHOLY.= This has now ceased, nearly or altogether, to designate
a particular form of moody madness, the German ‘Tiefsinn,’ which was
ascribed by the old physicians to a predominance of _black bile_
mingling with the blood. It was not, it is true, always restrained to
this particular form of mental unsoundness; thus Burton’s ‘Anatomy of
_Melancholy_’ has not to do with this one form of madness, but with
all. This, however, was its prevailing use, and here is to be found the
link of connexion between its present use, as a deep pensiveness or
sadness, and its past.
That property of _melancholy_, whereby men become to be
delirious in some one point, their judgment standing untouched
in others.--H. MORE, _A Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm_, sect.
xiv.
Luther’s conference with the devil might be, for ought I know,
nothing but a _melancholy_ dream.--CHILLINGWORTH, _The Religion
of Protestants_, Preface.
Though I am persuaded that none but the devil and this
_melancholy_ miscreant were in the plot [the Duke of
Buckingham’s murder], yet in foro Dei many were guilty of this
blood, that rejoiced it was spilt.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop
Williams_, part ii. p. 80.
Some _melancholy_ men have believed that elephants and birds
and other creatures, have a language whereby they discourse
with one another.--Bishop REYNOLDS, _Passions and Faculties of
the Soul_, c. 39.
=MERE=, }
MERELY. }
There is a good note on these words, and on the changes of meaning
which they have undergone, in Craik’s _English of Shakespeare_, p.
80. He there says: ‘Merely (from the Latin merus and mere) means
purely, only. It separates that which it designates and qualifies
from everything else. But in so doing the chief or most emphatic
reference may be made either to that which is included, or to that
which is excluded. In modern English it is always to the latter. In
Shakespeare’s day the other reference was more common, that namely to
what was included.’
With them all the people of Mounster went out, and many
other of them which were _mere_ English, thenceforth joined
themselves with the Irish against the king, and termed
themselves very Irish.--SPENSER, _View of the State of Ireland_.
Our wine is here mingled with water and with myrrh; there [in
heaven] it is _mere_ and unmixed.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Worthy
Communicant_.
The great winding-sheets, that bury all things in oblivion, are
two, deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great
droughts, they do not _merely_ dispeople and destroy. Phaeton’s
car went but a day; and the three years’ drought, in the time
of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive.--BACON,
_Essays_, 58.
Fye on’t; O fye! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it _merely_.
SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.
=MESS.= This used continually to be applied to a quarternion, or group
of _four_ persons or things. Probably in the distribution of food to
large numbers, it was found most convenient to arrange them in _fours_,
and hence this application of the word. A ‘mess’ at the Inns of Court
still consists of four. A phrase-book published in London in 1617 bears
this title, ‘Janua Linguarum _Quadrilinguis_, or A Messe of Tongues,
Latine, English, French, and Spanish.’
There lacks a fourth thing to make up the _mess_.--LATIMER,
_Sermon_ 5.
Where are your _mess_[19] of sons to back you now?
SHAKESPEARE, _3 Henry VI._ act i. sc. 4.
Amongst whom [converted Jews] we meet with a _mess_ of most
eminent men; Nicolaus Lyra, that grand commentator on the
Bible; Hieronymus de Sanctâ Fide, turned Christian about anno
1412; Ludovicus Carettus, living in Paris anno 1553; and the
never sufficiently to be praised Emmanuel Tremellius.--FULLER,
_A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, part ii. b. 5.
=METAL.= The Latin ‘metallum’ signified a mine before it signified
the metal which was found in the mine; and Jeremy Taylor uses ‘metal’
in this sense of mine. This may be a latinism peculiar to him, as he
has of such not a few; in which case it would scarcely have a right
to a place in this little volume, which does not propose to note
the peculiarities of single writers, but the general course of the
language. I, however, insert it, counting it more probable that my
limited reading hinders me from furnishing an example of this use from
some other author, than that such does not somewhere exist.
It was impossible to live without our king, but as slaves live,
that is, such who are civilly dead, and persons condemned
to _metals_.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium, Epistle
Dedicatory_.
=METHODIST.= This term is restricted at present to the followers of
John Wesley; but it was once applied to those who followed a certain
‘method’ in philosophical speculation, or in the ethical treatment of
themselves or others.
The finest _methodists_, according to Aristotle’s golden
rule of artificial bounds, condemn geometrical precepts in
arithmetic, or arithmetical precepts in geometry, as irregular
and abusive.--G. HARVEY, _Pierce’s Supererogation_, p. 117.
For physick, search into the writings of Hippocrates, Galen and
the _methodists_.--SANDERSON, _Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 135.
All of us have some or other tender parts of our souls, which
we cannot endure should be ungently touched; every man must be
his own _methodist_ to find them out.--JACKSON, _Justifying
Faith_, b. iv. c. 5.
=MILITIA.= By this name, as the contests between Charles I. and his
Parliament have made us all to know, the entire military force of the
nation, and not a part of it only, was designated in the seventeenth
century. It is true indeed that this force did much more nearly
resemble our militia than our standing army, but it was never used for
that to the exclusion of this.
It was a small thing to contend with the Parliament about the
sole power of the _militia_, which we see him doing little less
than laying hands on the weapons of God Himself, which are his
judgements, to wield and manage them by the sway and bent of his
own frail cogitations.--MILTON, _Iconoclastes_, c. 26.
The king’s captains and soldiers fight his battles, and yet
he is _summus imperator_, and the power of the _militia_ is
his.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Ductor Dubitantium_, iii. 3, 7.
Ye are of his flock and his _militia_; ye are now to fight
his battles, and therefore to put on his armour.--Id., _On
Preparation for Confirmation_, § 7.
=MINION.= Once no more than darling or dearling (mignon). It is quite a
superaddition of later times that the ‘minion’ is an unworthy object,
on whom an excessive fondness is bestowed.
Map now an Adam in thy memory,
By God’s own hand made with great majesty;
No idiot fool, nor drunk with vain opinion,
But God’s disciple, and his dearest _minion_.
SYLVESTER, _Du Bartas’ Weeks, The Imposture_.
Whoso to marry a _minion_ wife
Hath had good chance and hap,
Must love her and cherish her all his life,
And dandle her in his lap.
_Old Song._
=MINUTE.= ‘Minutes’ are now ‘minúte’ portions of _time_; they might
once be ‘minúte’ portions of anything.
But whanne a pore widewe was comun, sche keste two _mynutis_,
that is a ferthing.--_Mark_ xii. 42. WICLIF.
Let us, with the poor widow of the Gospel, at least give two
_minutes_.--BECON, _The Nosegay_, Preface.
An enquiry into the _minutes_ of conscience is commonly the
work of persons that live holily.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and
Practice of Repentance_, Preface.
And now, after such a sublimity of malice, I will not instance
in the sacrilegious ruin of the neighbouring temples, which
needs must have perished in the flame. These are but _minutes_,
in respect of the ruin prepared for the living temples.--Id.,
_Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason_.
=MISCREANT.= A settled conviction that to believe wrongly is the way to
live wrongly has caused that in all languages words, which originally
did but indicate the first, have gradually acquired a meaning of the
second. There is no more illustrious example of this than ‘miscreant,’
which now charges him to whom it is applied not with religious
error, but with extreme moral depravity; while yet, according to its
etymology, it did but mean at the first misbeliever, and as such would
have been as freely applied to the morally most blameless of these
as to the vilest and the worst. In the quotation from Shakespeare
York means to charge the Maid of Orleans, as a dealer in unlawful
charms, with apostasy from the Christian faith, according to the low
and unworthy estimate of her character, above which even Shakespeare
himself has not risen.
We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, because _miscreants_ in scorn have upbraided us that
the highest of our wisdom is, Believe.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical
Polity_, b. v.
One sort you say be those that believe not in Christ, but deny
Christ and his Scripture; as be the Turks, paynims, and such
other _miscreants_.--FRITH, _Works_, 1572, p. 62.
Curse, _miscreant_, when thou comest to the stake.
SHAKESPEARE, _1 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 2.
The consort and the principal servants of Soliman had been
honourably restored without ransom; and the emperor’s
generosity to the _miscreant_ was interpreted as treason to
the Christian cause.--GIBBON, _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, c. 58.
=MISER=, }
MISERY, }
MISERABLE. }
We may notice a curious shifting of parts in ‘miser,’ ‘misery,’
‘miserable.’ There was a time when the ‘miser’ was the wretched man,
he is now the covetous; at the same time ‘misery,’ which is now
wretchedness, and ‘miserable,’ which is now wretched, were severally
covetousness and covetous. They have in fact exactly reversed their
uses. Men still express by some words of this group, although not by
the same, by ‘miser’ (and ‘miserly’), not as once by ‘misery’ and
‘miserable,’ their deep moral conviction that the avaricious man is his
own tormentor, and bears his punishment involved in his sin. A passage,
too long to quote, in Gascoigne’s _Fruits of War_, st. 72-74, is very
instructive on the different uses of the word ‘miser’ even in his time,
and on the manner in which it was even then hovering between the two
meanings.
Because thou sayest, ‘That I am rich and enriched and lack
nothing;’ and knowest not that thou art a _miser_ [et nescis
quia tu es _miser_, Vulg.] and miserable and poor and blind and
naked.--_Rev._ iii. 17. Rhemish Version.
Vouchsafe to stay your steed for humble _miser’s_ sake.
SPENSER, _Fairy Queen_, ii. 1, 8.
He [Perseus] returned again to his old humour which was born
and bred with him, and that was avarice and _misery_.--NORTH,
_Plutarch’s Lives_, p. 215.
But Brutus, scorning his [Octavius Cæsar’s] _misery_ and
niggardliness, gave unto every band a number of wethers to
sacrifice, and fifty silver drachmas to every soldier.--Id.,
_ib._, p. 830.
If _avarice_ be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment;
_miserable_ men commiserate not themselves; bowelless unto
themselves, and merciless unto their own bowels.--Sir T.
BROWNE, _Letter to a Friend_.
The liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal,
_miserable_; and by the judgment of the _miserable_,
lavish.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 65.
=MISS.= Now to be conscious of the loss of, and nearly answering to the
Latin ‘desiderare,’ but once to do without, to dispense with.
But as ’tis,
We cannot _miss_ him; he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us.
SHAKESPEARE, _Tempest_, act i. sc. 2.
I will have honest valiant souls about me,
I cannot _miss_ thee.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _The Mad Lover_, act. ii.
=MODEL.= This is due to a French form from a late Latin diminutive of
‘modulus,’ a diminutive of ‘modus;’ but this diminutive sense which
once went constantly with the word, and which will alone explain the
quotations which follow, when it lies in the word now, exists only by
accident of context.
O England, _model_ to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart.
SHAKESPEARE, _Henry V._, act ii. Chorus.
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small _model_ of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
Id., _Richard II._, act iii. sc. 2.
If Solomon’s Temple were compared to some structures and fanes
of heathen gods, it would appear as St. Gregory’s to St. Paul’s
(the babe by the mother’s side), or rather this David’s _model_
would be like David himself standing by Goliath, so gigantic
were some pagan fabrics in comparison thereof.--FULLER, _A
Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, b. iii. c. 3.
=MOOD.= It is hardly necessary to observe that there are two ‘moods’ in
the English language, the one the Latin ‘modus,’ and existing in the
two forms of ‘mood’ (grammatical) and ‘mode;’ the other the Anglo-Saxon
‘mód,’ the German ‘muth.’ It is this last with which we are dealing
here. It would seem as if its homonym had influenced it so far as to
take out in great part the force from it, though not from ‘moody;’ but
it had not always so done.
And on here bare knees adoun they falle,
And wolde han kist his feet ther as he stood,
Till atte laste aslaked was his _mood_.
CHAUCER, _The Knightes Tale_, 900.
And as a lion skulking all in night
Far off in pastures, and, come home, all dight
In jaws and breastlocks with an oxe’s blood
New feasted on him, his looks full of _mood_,
So looked Ulysses.
CHAPMAN, _Homer’s Odysseis_, xxii. 518.
Then Phœbus gathered up his steeds that yet for fear had run
Like flaighted fiends, and in his _mood_ without respect begun
To beat his whipstock on their pates, and lash them on their sides.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. ii.
=MOROSE.= It is very curious that while the classical ‘mōrosus’
expressed one given overmuch to his own manners, habits, ways (mores),
very nearly the Greek αὐθέκαστος, the medieval ‘mŏrosus’ was commonly
connected with ‘mora,’ a delay;[20] and in treatises of Christian
ethics was the technical word to express the sin of _delaying_ upon
impure, wanton, or, as in the quotation from South, malignant
thoughts, instead of rejecting them on the instant. See, for instance,
Gerson, _Opp._, vol. i. p. 377, for evidence constantly recurring of
its connexion for him with ‘mora.’ So long as the scholastic theology
exerted more or less influence on our own, ‘morose’ was often employed
in this sense; which, however, it has since entirely foregone. I owe
the third quotation given below to Todd, who is so entirely unaware of
this history of ‘morose,’ that he explains it there as ungovernable!
Here are forbidden all wanton words, and all _morose_
delighting in venereous thoughts, all rolling and tossing such
things in our minds.--Bishop TAYLOR, _Doctrine and Practice of
Repentance_, c. 4, § 1.
All _morose_ thoughts, that is, _delaying_, dwelling, or
insisting on such thoughts, fancying of such unclean matters
with delectation.--HAMMOND, _Practical Catechism_, b. ii. § 6.
In this [the seventh] commandment are forbidden all that feed
this sin [adultery], or are incentives to it, as luxurious
diet, inflaming wines, an idle life, _morose_ thoughts, that
dwell in the fancy with delight.--NICHOLSON, _Exposition of the
Catechism_, 1662, p. 123.
For we must know that it is the _morose_ dwelling of the
thoughts upon an injury, a long and sullen meditation upon a
wrong, that incorporates and rivets it into the mind.--SOUTH,
_Sermons_, vol. x. p. 278.
=MORTAL.= We speak still of a ‘mortal’ sin or a ‘mortal’ wound, but
the active sense has nearly departed from the word, as the passive has
altogether departed from ‘deadly,’ which see.
Were there a serpent seen with forkéd tongue
That slily glided towards your majesty,
It were but necessary you were waked,
Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
The _mortal_ worm might make the sleep eternal.
SHAKESPEARE, _2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2.
Come, thou _mortal_ wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie.
Id., _Antony and Cleopatra_, act v. sc. 2.
=MOUNTEBANK.= Now _any_ antic fool; but once restrained to the
quack-doctor who at fairs and such places of resort, having _mounted_
on a _bank_ or _bench_, from thence proclaimed the virtue of his drugs;
being described by Whitlock (_Zootomia_, p. 436) as ‘a fellow above the
vulgar more by three planks and two empty hogsheads than by any true
skill.’ See the quotation from Jackson, _s. v._ ‘Authentic.’
Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a
_mountebank_ or cunning woman is preferred before an able
physician.--WHITLOCK, _Zootomia_, p. 437.
Giving no cause of complaint to any but such as are unwilling
to be healed of their shameful and dangerous diseases, who
love ignorant and flattering _mountebanks_ more than the
most learned and faithful physicians of souls.--GAUDEN,
_Hieraspistes_, p. 427.
Above the reach of antidotes, the power
Of the famed Pontic _mountebank_ to cure.
OLDHAM, _Third Satire upon the Jesuits_.
=MUSE.= There is a very curious use of ‘Muse’ in our earlier
literature, according to which the female sex of this inspirer of song
falls quite out of sight. This recurs too often and too deliberately to
be explained away as the accidental inaccuracy of some single writer.
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds
Intends our _Muse_ to vaunt _his_ heavenly verse.
MARLOWE, _Dr. Faustus_, 5, 6.
So is it not with me as with that _Muse_,
Stirred by a painted beauty to _his_ verse.
SHAKESPEARE, _Sonnet 21_.
So may some gentle _Muse_,
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as _he_ passes, turn.
MILTON, _Lycidas_, 19.
Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses’ friend,
Himself a _Muse_.
DRYDEN, _Absalom and Achitophel_, pt. 1.
=MUTTON.= It is a refinement in the English language, one wanting in
some other languages which count themselves as refined or more, that
it has in so many cases one word to express the living animal, and
another its flesh prepared for food; ox and beef, calf and veal, deer
and venison, sheep and mutton. In this last instance the refinement is
of somewhat late introduction. At one time they were synonyms.
Peucestas, having feasted them in the kingdom of Persia, and
given every soldier a _mutton_ to sacrifice, thought he had won
great favour and credit among them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s Lives_,
p. 505.
A starved _mutton’s_ carcass would better fit their
palates.--BEN JONSON, _The Sad Shepherd_, act i. sc. 2.
=NAMELY.= Now only designates; but, like the German ‘namentlich,’ once
designated as first and chief, as deserving above all others to be
named.
For there are many disobedient, and talkers of vanity,
and deceivers of minds, _namely_ [μάλιστα] they of the
circumcision.--_Tit._ i. 10. TYNDALE.
For in the darkness occasioned by the opposition of the earth
just in the mids between the sun and the moon, there was
nothing for him [Nicias] to fear, and _namely_ at such a time,
when there was cause for him to have stood upon his feet, and
served valiantly in the field.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_,
p. 265.
=NATURALIST.= At present the student of natural history; but in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the name was often given to the
deist, as one who denied any but a religion _of nature_, ‘Natural
religion men’ such were sometimes called. See the quotation from
Rogers, _s. v._ ‘Civil.’
But that he [the atheist] might not be shy of me, I have
conformed myself as near his own garb as I might, without
partaking of his folly or wickedness; and have appeared in the
plain shape of a mere _naturalist_ myself, that I might, if it
were possible, win him off from downright atheism.--H. MORE,
_Antidote against Atheism_, Preface, p. 7.
This is the invention of Satan, that whereas all will not
be profane, nor _naturalists_, nor epicures, but will be
religious, lo, he hath a bait for every fish, and can insinuate
himself as well into religion itself as into lusts and
pleasures.--ROGERS, _Naaman the Syrian_, p. 115.
Heathen _naturalists_ hold better consort with the primitive
Church concerning the nature of sin original than the
Socinians.--JACKSON, _Of Christ’s Everlasting Priesthood_, b.
x. c. 8, § 4.
=NEEDFUL.= This was once often equivalent to ‘needy.’ The words,
however, have in more recent times been discriminated in use, and
‘needy’ is active, and ‘needful’ passive.
These ferthinges shal be gaderid at everi moneth ende, and
delid forth to the _needful_ man in honor of Christ and his
moder.--_English Gilds_, p. 38.
Grieve not the heart of him that is helpless, and withdraw not
the gift from the _needful_.--_Ecclus._ iv. 2. COVERDALE.
For thou art the poor man’s help, and strength for the
_needful_ in his necessity.--_Isai._ xxv. 3. Id.
Great variety of clothes have been permitted to princes and
nobility, and they usually give those clothes as rewards to
servants and other persons _needful_ enough.--Bishop TAYLOR,
_Holy Living_, iv. 8, 13.
=NEPHEW.= Restrained at this present to the son of a brother or a
sister; but formerly of much laxer use, a grandson, or even a remoter
lineal descendant. In East Anglia it is still so used in the popular
language (see Nall, _Dialects of the East Coast_, s. v.). ‘Nephew’ in
fact has undergone exactly the same change of meaning that ‘nepos’ in
Latin underwent; which in the Augustan age meaning grandson, in the
post-Augustan acquired the signification of ‘nephew’ in our present
acceptation of that word. See ‘Niece.’
The warts, black moles, spots and freckles of fathers, not
appearing at all upon their own children’s skin, begin
afterwards to put forth and show themselves in their _nephews_,
to wit, the children of their sons and daughters.--HOLLAND,
_Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 555.
With what intent they [the apocryphal books] were first
published, those words of the _nephew_ of Jesus do plainly
enough signify: After that my _grandfather_ Jesus had given
himself to the reading of the law and the prophets, he
purposed also to write something pertaining to learning and
wisdom.--HOOKER, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, b. v. c. 20.
If any widow have children or _nephews_ [ἔκγονα], let them
learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their
parents.--_1 Tim._ v. 4. (A.V.)
=NICE.= The use of ‘nice’ in the sense of fastidious, difficult to
please, still survives, indeed this is now, as in times past, the
ruling notion of the word; only this ‘niceness’ is taken now much
oftener in good part than in ill; nor, even when taken in an ill sense,
would the word be used exactly as in the passage which follows.
A. W. [Anthony Wood] was with him several times, ate and drank
with him, and had several discourses with him concerning arms
and armory, which he understood well; but he found him _nice_
and supercilious.--A. WOOD, _Athenæ Oxonienses_, 1848, vol. i.
p. 161.
=NIECE.= This word has undergone the same change and limitation of
meaning as ‘nephew,’ with indeed the further limitation that it is now
applied to the female sex alone, to the _daughter_ of a brother or a
sister, being once used, as ‘neptis’ was at the first, for children’s
children, male and female alike. See ‘Nephew.’
Laban answeride to hym: My dowytres and sones, and the flockis,
and alle that thou beholdist, ben myne, and what may I do to my
sones and to my _neces_?--_Gen._ xxi. 43 (cf. _Exod._ xxxiv.
7). WICLIF.
The Emperor Augustus, among other singularities that he had by
himself during his life, saw, ere he died, the nephew of his
_niece_, that is to say, his progeny to the fourth degree of
lineal descent.--HOLLAND, _Pliny_, vol. i. p. 162.
Within the compass of which very same time he [Julius Cæsar]
lost by death first his mother, then his daughter Julia,
and not long after his _niece_ by the said daughter.--Id.,
_Suetonius_, p. 11.
=NOISOME=, }
NOISOMENESS. }
At present offensive and moving disgust; but once noxious and actually
hurtful; thus a skunk would be ‘noisome’ now; a tiger was ‘noisome’
then. In all passages of the Authorized Translation of the Bible where
the word occurs, as at _Ezek._ xiv. 15, 21, it is used not in the
present meaning, but the past. See ‘Annoy.’
They that will be rich fall into temptations and snares, and
into many foolish and _noisome_ [βλαβεράς] lusts, which drown
men in perdition and destruction.--_1 Tim._ vi. 9. Geneva.
He [the superstitious person] is persuaded that they be gods
indeed, but such as be _noisome_, hurtful, and doing mischief
unto men.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 260.
This _noisome_ creature [the crocodile] is one of the greatest
wonders we meet with, in that from so small a beginning as an
egg, not much bigger than that of a turkey, they increase to
eight or ten yards in length.--HERBERT, _Travels_, 1636, p. 323.
They [the prelates] are so far from hindering dissension, that
they have made unprofitable, and even _noisome_, the chiefest
remedy we have to keep Christendom at one, which is, by
Councils.--MILTON, _Reason of Church Government_, b. i. c. 6.
Sad in his time was the condition of the Israelites, oppressed
by the Midianites, who swarmed like grasshoppers for number and
_noisomeness_, devouring all which the other had sown.--FULLER,
_A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, part i. b. ii. c. 8.
=NOVEL=, }
NOVELIST. }
‘Novels’ once were simply news, ‘nouvelles;’ and the ‘novelist’ not a
writer of new tales, but an innovator, a bringer in of new fashions
into the Church or State.
She brynges in her bille som _novels_ new;
Behold! it is of an olif tree
A branch, thynkes me.
_Townley Mysteries._
But, see and say what you will, _novelists_ had rather be
talked of, that they began a fashion and set a copy for
others, than to keep within the imitation of the most excellent
precedents.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part ii. p.
36.
Every _novelist_ with a whirligig in his brain must broach new
opinions, and those made canons, nay sanctions, as sure as if
a General Council had confirmed them.--ADAMS, _The Devil’s
Banquet_, 1614, p. 52.
I can hardly believe my eyes while I read such a petit
_novelist_ charging the whole Church as fools and heretics for
not subscribing to a silly heretical notion, solely of his own
invention.--SOUTH, _Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock’s Book_, p.
3.
=NURSERY.= We have but one use of ‘nursery’ at this present, namely as
the place of nursing; but it was once applied as well to the person
nursed, or the act of nursing.
A jolly dame, no doubt; as appears by the well battling of
the plump boy, her _nursery_.--FULLER, _A Pisgah Sight of
Palestine_, part i. b. ii. c. 8.
If _nursery_ exceeds her [a mother’s] strength, and yet her
conscience will scarce permit her to lay aside and free herself
from so natural, so religious a work, yet tell her, God loves
mercy better than sacrifice.--ROGERS, _Matrimonial Honour_, p.
247.
I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind _nursery_.
SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_, act i. sc. 1.
=OBELISK.= The ‘obelus’ is properly a sharp-pointed spear or spit.
With a sign resembling this, spurious or doubtful passages were marked
in the books of antiquity, which sign bore therefore this name of
‘obelus,’ or sometimes of its diminutive ‘obeliscus.’ It is in this
sense that we find ‘obelisk’ employed by the writers in the seventeenth
century; while for us at the present a small pillar tapering towards
the summit is the only ‘obelisk’ that we know.
The Lord Keeper, the most circumspect of any man alive to
provide for uniformity, and to countenance it, was scratched
with their _obelisk_, that he favoured Puritans, and that
sundry of them had protection through his connivency or
clemency.--HACKET, _Life of Archbishop Williams_, part i. p. 95.
I have set my mark upon them [_i.e._ affected pedantic words];
and if any of them may have chanced to escape the _obelisk_,
there can arise no other inconvenience from it but an occasion
to exercise the choice and judgment of the reader.--PHILLIPS,
_New World of Words_, Preface.
=OBNOXIOUS.= This, in its present lax and slovenly use a vague
unserviceable synonym for offensive, is properly applied to one who on
the ground of a mischief or wrong committed by him is justly liable to
punishment (_ob noxam_ pœnæ obligatus); and is used in this sense by
South (see below). But there often falls out of the word the sense of a
wrong committed; and that of liability to punishment, whether just or
unjust, only remains; it does so very markedly in the quotation from
Donne. But we punish, or wish to punish, those whom we dislike, and
thus ‘obnoxious’ has obtained its present sense of offensive.
They envy Christ, but they turn upon the man, who was more
_obnoxious_ to them, and they tell him that it was not lawful
for him to carry his bed that day [_John_ v. 10].--DONNE,
_Sermon 20_.
Examine thyself in the particulars of thy relations; especially
where thou governest and takest accounts of others, and art not
so _obnoxious_ to them as they to thee.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The
Worthy Communicant_, c. vi. sect. 2.
What shall we then say of the power of God Himself to dispose
of men? little, finite, _obnoxious_ things of his own
making?--SOUTH, _Sermons_, 1744, vol. viii. p. 315.
He [Satan] is in a chain, and that chain is in God’s hand; and
consequently, notwithstanding his utmost spite, he cannot be
more malicious than he is _obnoxious_.--Id., _ib._ vol. vi. p.
287.
=OBSEQUIOUS=, }
OBSEQUIOUSNESS. }
There lies ever in ‘obsequious’ at the present the sense of an
observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in
with the will of another; there lay nothing of this in the Latin
‘obsequium,’ nor yet in our English word as employed two centuries ago.
See the quotation from Feltham, _s. v._ ‘Garb.’
Besides many other fishes in divers places, which are very
obeisant and _obsequious_, when they be called by their
names.--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 970.
I ever set this down, that the only course to be held with the
Queen was by _obsequiousness_ and observance.--Lord BACON,
_Defence of Himself_.
His corrections are so far from compelling men to come to
heaven, as that they put many men farther out of their way, and
work an obduration rather than an _obsequiousness_.--DONNE,
_Sermon 45_.
In her relation to the king she was the best pattern of
conjugal love and _obsequiousness_.--BATES, _Sermon upon the
Death of the Queen_.
=OCCUPY=, }
OCCUPIER. }
He now ‘occupies’ who has in present possession; but the word involved
once the further signification of using, employing, laying out that
which was thus possessed; and by an ‘occupier’ was meant a trader or
retail dealer.
He [Eumenes] made as though he had occasion to _occupy_ money,
and so borrowed a great sum of them.--NORTH, _Plutarch’s
Lives_, p. 505.
If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were _occupied_,
then shall I be weak, and be as another man.--_Judges_ xvi. 11.
(A.V.)
Mercury, the master of merchants and _occupiers_
[ἀγοραίων].--HOLLAND, _Plutarch’s Morals_, p. 692.
=OFFAL.= This, bearing its derivation on its front, namely that it
is that which, as refuse and of little or no worth, is suffered or
caused to _fall off_, we restrict at the present to the refuse of the
butcher’s stall; but it was once employed in a much wider acceptation,
an acceptation which here and there still survives. Thus, as one who
writes to me, ‘in all her Majesty’s dockyards there is a monthly sale
by auction of “offal wood,” being literally that which _falls off_ from
the log under the saw, axe, or adze.’
Glean not in barren soil these _offal_ ears,
Sith reap thou may’st whole harvests of delight.
SOUTHWELL, _Lewd Love is Loss_.
Of gold the very smallest filings are precious, and our
Blessed Saviour, when there was no want of provision, yet gave
it in charge to his disciples, the _off-fall_ should not be
lost.--SANDERSON, _Preface to the Clavi Trabales_.
Poor Lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs; he
only seeks chippings, _offals_; let him roar and howl, famish
and eat his own flesh; he respects him not.--BURTON, _Anatomy
of Melancholy_, part iii. sect. 1.
=OFFICIOUS=, }
OFFICIOUSNESS.}
Again and again we light on words used once in a good, but now in an
unfavourable, sense. An ‘officious’ person is now a busy uninvited
meddler in matters which do not belong to him; so late as Burke’s
time he might be one prompt and forward in due _offices_ of kindness.
The more honourable use of ‘officious’ now only survives in the
distinction familiar to diplomacy between an ‘official’ and ‘officious’
communication.
With granted leave _officious_ I return.
MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, ii. 302.
_Officious_, ready to do good offices, serviceable, friendly,
very courteous and obliging.--PHILLIPS, _New World of Words_.
They [the nobility of France] were tolerably well bred, very
_officious_, humane, and hospitable.--BURKE, _Reflections on
the Revolution in France_, p. 251.
Well try’d through many a varying year,
See Levett to the grave descend,
_Officious_, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.