The Romance of Words (4th ed.)

sh, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, origin; and from the same source comes what we may call the machinery of the language, i.e., its inflexions, numerals, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctio

ts unequalled richness in expression. For most ideas we have three separate terms, or groups of terms, which, often starting from the same metaphor, serve to express different shades of meaning. Thus a deed done with malice prepense (an Old French

This in its turn was replaced by army, Fr. armée, which, like its Spanish doublet armada, is really a feminine past participle with some word for host,

e special sense, e.g., weed, a gene

snake throws he

ough to wrap

Night's Dre

w's weeds." Chare

aid th

the meane

d Cleopatr

oman, and persists

oncluding the post

rison, Que

been replaced by cause, except in phrases beginning with the preposition for. See also bead

to our vocabulary. The following chapters deal especially with words borrowed from Old French and from the other Romance languages, their origins and journeyings, and the various accidents that have befallen them in English. It

IN

abominate[6] is to turn shuddering from the evil omen, a generous man is a man of "race" (genus), an innuendo can be conveyed "by nodding," to insult is to "jump on," a legend is something "to be read," a manual is a "hand-book," an obligation is essentially "binding," to relent is to "go slow," rivals are people living by the same "stream"[7] (

br?, solidi, denarii, we have, without including scientific terms, many Latin nouns, e.g., animal, genius, index, odium, omen, premium, radius, scintilla, stimulus, tribunal, and adjectives, e.g., complex, lucifer, miser, pauper, maximum, senior, and the ungrammatical bonus. The Lat. ve

or the amount of your costs

ick, C

n inventory. With this we may compare the purview of a statute, from the Old Fr. pourveu (pourvu), provided,

my, vy worn't t

ick, C

ts in a viz. always aware that this is an old abbreviation for videlicet, i.e., videre licet, it is permissible

ED LATI

d or phrase represented "by things." Requiem, accusative of requies,

ernam dona

perative dirige, from the a

meus, in conspec

dirige was

the paryshe prystys beying a

rfay, of Bury St

for plaudite, clap your hands, the appeal of the Roma

, Iovis summi caus

s, Amph

from pande palmam, hold out your hand. Parse is the Lat. pars, occurring in the question Qu? pars orationis? What part of speech? Omnibus, for all, is a dative plural. Limbo is the ablativ

patrum, and there they are li

VIII.

as logical premisses, or assumptions. Quorum is from a legal formula giving a list of persons "of whom" a certain number must be present. A teetotum is so called because it has, or once had, on one of its sides, a T standing for totum, all. It was also called simply a totum. The other three side

taining demi-god whose picture used to decorate map-books, colon, comma, dogma, epitome,

its which the

sidelong as th

e Lost,

ds have passed through French via Latin, or are newly manufact

duced the method of indicating the notes by the letters a to g. For the note below a he used the Gk. gamma. To him is attributed a

laxis reso

orum famu

lluti la

e Ioh

ed for ut in French, and

H DIA

e case of imparisyllabic words. The foundation of French is Vulgar Latin, which differs considerably from that we study at school. I only give Vulgar Latin forms where it cannot be avoided. For instance, in dealing with culverin (p. 38), I conn

illustrates both these points. It is the same word as modern Fr. chaudeau, "a caudle; or, warme broth" (Cotgrave), but it preserves the Old French[9] -el for -eau, and the Picard c- for ch-. An uncomfortable br

en its

thin, as sh

ks o' b

and Doctor Hor

o those of Fr. pièce. It comes from the Old French dialect form peche, as match comes from mèche, and cratch, a manger, from crèche, of German origin, and ultima

sone, and wlappide him in clo

, Luke,

ountain in Auvergne on which Pascal made his experiments with the barometer. Dupuy is a commo

ter a while to reject with contempt." But Minsheu is substantially right, if we substitute Old Fr. dis mal, which is found as early as 1256. Old Fr. di, a day, also survives in the names of the days of the week, lundi, etc. In remainder and remnant we have the infinit

ED FREN

p is atout, to all. Rappee is for obsolete Fr. (tabac) rapé, pulverised, rasped. Fr. talon, heel, from Vulgar Lat. *talo, talon-, for talus, was applied by falconers to the heel claw of the hawk. This meaning, obsolete

iane. The gist of a matter is the point in which its importance really "lies." Ci-g?t, for Old Fr. ci-gist, Lat. jacet, here lies, is seen on old tombstones. Tennis, says Minsheu, is so called from Fr. tenez, hold, "which word the Frenchmen, the onely tennis-players, use to speake when they strike the ball." This etymology, for a long time regarded as a wild guess, has been shewn by recent research to be most probably correct. The game is of French origin, and it was played

assoil'd us, and sa

yage of Maeld

ldre (absoudre), to absolve, used in the ster

nd. The Norman dialect, already familiar through inevitable intercourse, was transplanted to England in 1066. It developed further on its own lines into Anglo-Norman, and then, mixed with other French dialects, for not all the invaders were Normans, and political events brought various French provinces into relation with England, it produced Anglo-French, a somewhat barbarous tongue whi

mis pour moderer sa c

ais, i

LOG

e and obscure for insertion in the first volume of the New English Dictionary (1888), the greatest word-book that has ever been projected. Sabotage looks, unfortunately, as if it had come to stay. It is a derivative of saboter, to scamp work, from sabot, a wooden shoe, used contemptuously of an inferior article. The great French dictionaries do not know it in its latest sense of malicious damage done by strikers, and the New English Dictionary, which finished Sa- in the year 1912, just missed it. H

as risen late in life. Its southern form hatchell is common in Mid. English in its proper sense of "teasing" hemp or flax, and the metaphor is exactly the same. Tease, earlier toose, means to pluck or pull to pieces, hence the name teasel

, shiftless

eorge, 1st

ver heard of a week-end till I paid a visit to Lancashire in 1883. It has long since invaded the whole island. An old geezer

UE TO A

much less familiar but for Tennyson. Mascot, from a Proven?al word meaning sorcerer, dates from Audran's operetta La Mascotte (1880). Jingo first appears in conjurors' jargon of the 17th century.

from the great tenaciousness of vita

sia seemed imminent, a music-hall singer, the G

o fight, but, by

we've got the men, we

American caucus was first applied (1878) by Lord Beaconsfield to the Birmingham Six Hundred. In 18th-century American it means meeting or discussion. It is probably connected with a North American Indian (Algonkin) word meaning counsellor, an etymology supported by that of pow-wow, a palaver or confab, which is the Algonkin for a medicine-man. With these words may be mentioned Tammany, now used of

d, 'at Man, as we see him first emergin

rison, Que

UN

reat writer has enriched the

ng circle

nd bartisa

tion, t

ion,

nd in early Scottish. It is rather a favourite with writers of "sword and feather" novels. Other sham a

slug-horn to

Roland to the D

warison, security, a doublet of garr

they sound

nd spoil th

, iv

currency to nidd

answorn,[13]

oe, Ch

t. It is a misprint in an early edition of William of Malmesbury for niding or nithing, co

realm, was stoutly kept against him, after that he had but proclaimed that his subjects should repair thither to his camp, upon no other penalty, but that whosoever should refuse to come should be

concernin

valrie." It is due to his misunderstanding of a passage in Lidgate, in which it

himself, 'if there be two who ca

oe, Ch

sed to Bulwer Lytto

rcial purposes are not exceptions to this law. Bovril is compounded of Lat. bos, ox, and vril,[15] the mysterious power which plays so important a part in Lytton's Coming Race, while Tono-Bungay suggests tonic. The only exception to this is gas, the arbitrary coinage of the Bel

day! Callo

led in h

the Looki

e boojum is lacking, most people know

TNO

in late Old French and Mid. English, as thou

gy is doubted by

6th century such puzzles were called rébus de Pica

ere to include all words not in modern use. Wher

s rather out of place in a book intended for the general reader, but I cannot refrain from giving a most interesting note which I owe to Mr W. B. Whall, Master Mariner, the author of Shakespeare's Sea Terms Explained-"The sail was (until c. 1780) lateen, i.e., tri

derate his tyrannical choler"

n the political sense is claimed both for

it, cognate with the first syl

ms to be artificially elaborated from ?βραξ??, a word of Persian origin used by a sect of Greek gnostics. Its

ably had in mind Lat. vis, vires