Can the editor, or any of the readers of "N. & Q." account for the very
prevalent misuse of the word _restive_ or _restiff_? Of course, everybody
knows that the affix _ive_ or _iff_ does not imply "privation," but the
opposite; and that therefore _restive_ means--as we find it defined in our
dictionaries--"unwilling to stir," "inclined or determined to rest," &c.;
but yet the most common use of the word now would require it to mean
"unwilling to rest," "rest_less_," "unquiet," &c. As the word is most
frequently employed in newspaper paragraphs, in describing accidents
arising from the _restiveness_, or much more frequently _restlessness_, of
horses, we can easily account for the misuse of the word in such cases: as
the free use of the whip, which is sure to follow the restiveness of a
horse or ass, is almost as surely followed by a sudden restlessness, at
least when the nobler animal is under chastisement; what ends in
restlessness and running away has thus got confounded with what it only has
become, in some cases; while in others nothing is more common than to find
the sudden shying and starting off of a horse, which has been anything but
_restive_, described as such by some forgetfulness of the meaning of the
word. Were the misuse of the word confined to such cases, however, it might
not be worthy of notice in "N. & Q.", but I think it will be found to
extend further: for instance, in _The Eclipse of Faith_ (recently
published), although evidently written by a scholar, and one who weighs the
meaning of words, I find the following passage:
"'But,' said Fellowes, rather warmly, for he felt rather _restive_ at
this part of Harrington's discourse," &c.
Here the word is evidently employed (instead of _restless_[1]) figuratively
for _impatient_; although I am not aware that a "bumptious" person might
defend the word actually used, in the sense that the listener _refused to
go along further_ with the speaker. Still I think _restlessness_ was the
idea intended to be conveyed in the above passage, and that "impatient"
would have been the better word, considering that it follows "he _felt_."