The Romance of Words (4th ed.)

inese word cannot suddenly make its appearance in Anglo-Saxon, though it may quite well do so in modern English. No nautical terms have reached us from the coast of Bohemia (Winter's Tale, i

have taken little from modern German. On the other hand, commerce has introduced a

, pinace, or pirats ship." The modern Dutch spelling is jacht. We should expect to find art terms from the country of Hobbema, Rubens, Vandyke, etc. See easel (p. 39), etch (p. 133), lay-figure (p. 166), sketch (p. 22). Landscape, earlier landskip, has the suffix which in English would be -ship. In the 16th century Camden speaks of "a landskip, as they call it." The Low Countries were for two centuries the cock-pit of Europe, and many military terms were brought back to England by Dugald Dalgetty and the armies which "swore ter

e as lying a gossip in th

of Venic

g to the parallel lines of the list or plan; for a somewhat s

Holland take pl

of England take pl

, a word, like its German cognate Zeug, with an infinity of meanings. We no

ARANCE

century, Henri Estienne, patriot, printer, and philologist, lamented that future historians would believe, from the vocabulary employed, that France had learnt the art of war from Italy. As a matter of fact she did. The earliest writers on the new tactics necess

23-7). This is not surprising when we consider how in the 15th and 16th centuries the world was dotted w

ltic languages have percolated into English in comparatively recent times, but many terms which we associate with the picturesque Highlanders are not Gaelic at all.[18] Tarta

es, together with a large Romany element. The early dictionary makers paid great attention to this aspect of the language. Elisha Coles, who published a fairly complete English dictiona

ter, which has thus crossed the Atlantic twice on its way from Holland to England. A number of Dutch words became familiar to us about the year 1900 in consequence of the South African war. One of them, slim, 'cute, seems

It comes to us from Fr. abricot,

h apricocks a

Night's Dre

rquq, where al is the definite article (cf. examples on p. 115), while barquq comes, through medieval Greek, from Vulgar Lat. pr?coquum, for pr?cox, early-ripe. Th

TRADE

t" (Florio). The Italian word is from Arabic, but the Arabic form is a corruption of Gk. κερ?τιον, fruit of the locust tree, lit. little horn, a

ondon, who may enter into any shop, warehouse, etc., to view and sea

s Inter

eight, which is Lat. centenarium (whence directly Ger. Zentner, hundred-weight). The French word passed into Dutch, and gave, with a diminutive ending, kindekijn, now replaced by kinnetje, a firkin.[21] We have adopted it as kilderkin, but have doubled its capacity. With these examples of

presents medieval Gk. κουρσ?ριο?, a transliteration of Vulgar Lat. cursarius, from currere, to run, which occurs also with the sense of pirate in medieval Latin. Hussar is thus a doublet of corsair. The immediate source of sketch is Du.

They should only adopt, he says, Italian words which express Italian qualities hitherto unknown to the French, such as assassin, charlatan, poltron! Assassin is really a plural, from the hachaschin, eaters of the drug haschish, who executed the decrees of the Old Man of the Mountains. It was one of these who stabbed Edward Longshanks at Ac

Mexican word. The cocoa of cocoa-nut is for coco, a Spanish baby-word for an ugly face or bogie-man. The black marks at one end of the nut give it, especially befo

BOY

ay. The original mustangs were of course descended from the strayed horses of the Spanish conquistadors. Ranch, Span. rancho, a row (of huts), is a doublet of rank, from Fr. rang, Old Fr. reng, Old High Ger. hring, a ring. Thus what is now usually straight was once circular, the ground idea of arrangement surviving. Anot

less familiar cinch, girth of a horse, Span. cin

ed Mother Nature 'to get a cinch

Mrs Fit

ing-whip called a quir

earing as they p

ield,

ther, Lat. re-aptare. Combined with the definite article (la reata) it has given lariat, a familiar word in

he Song of

anito, th

calumet, th

al to the

as naturally applied by early French voyagers to the "long reed for a pipe-stem." Eng. shawm is the same word without the diminutive ending

o Bath because I had

e Madding Cr

lon" (Cooper), whence Fr. furoncle, or froncle, "the hot and hard bumpe, or swelling, tearmed, a fellon" (Cotgrave). Another Latin name for it was tagax, "a felon on a man's finger" (Cooper), lit. thievish. O

GUESE

Indian. Some readers will, I think, be surprised to hear that assegai occurs in Chaucer, though in a form not easily recognisable. It is a Berber word which passed through Spanish and Portuguese into French and English. We find Fr. archegaie in the 14th century, azagaie in

upon his s

s hond a

werd by

hopas,

ited by statute in 1406, hence th

rchas. It is the Port. feiti?o, Lat. factitius, artificial, applied by the Portuguese explorers to the graven images of the heathen. The corresponding Old Fr. faitis is rather a complimentary adjective, and everyone remembers the lady in Chaucer who spoke French fairly and fetousli. Palaver, also a travellers' word from the African coast, is Port. palavra, word, speech, Greco-Lat. parabola. It is thus a doublet of parole and parable, and is related to parley. Ayah, an Indian nurse, is Port. aia, nurse, of unknown origin. Caste is Port. casta, pure, and a doublet of chaste. Tank, an Anglo-Indian word of which the meaning has narrowed in this country

LLA-

ably followed very much the same route as Sir Richard Dalyngridge and Saxon Hugh when they voyaged with Witta the Viking. He wrote in Punic a record of his adventures, which was received with the incredulity usually accorded to travellers' tales. Among the wonders he e

ut all the Romance languages use for silk a name derived from Lat. s?ta, bristle, and this name has penetrated even into German (Seide) and Dutch (zijde). The derivatives of sericum stand for another material, serge. Nor can it be assumed that the r of the Latin word would have become in English always l and never r. There are races

TNO

ken in a large part of Belgium

-sack, comes throug

clan names, e.g., Macpherson, son of

trich (p. 42). An implement used for opening an enemy may well have been named in this way

ace" (Mr Birrell, in the House, 26th Oct. 1911). The bull a

vative of Du. vierde, fourth;

(Arab.) mea

corruption of Span. bastonada, "a stroke with a club or staff" (Stevens, 1706). On the other